Jordan Peele’s 2022 Sci-fi Thriller has gotten a lot of acclaim and attention, is it justified?
The critically acclaimed film “Nope” proved popular among students due to the unique spin it had on a simple UFO story.
“Nope” is a 2022 sci-fi horror film written and directed by Jordan Peele, director, and writer of “Get Out” (2017) and “Us” (2019). This film stars Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as siblings that live in a desolate valley near Hollywood and witness strange occurrences. After seeing a UFO fly over their house, they attempt to capture evidence to prove what they saw is real. Nope has been a success, securing the biggest opening weekend for an original film since the pandemic began. It has made over $100 million in the box office and made $44 million in its opening week alone.
Some students who saw the movie had some thoughts about what they liked and disliked about the movie. A student talks about how he liked it compared to other movies that came out this year.
“I actually really enjoyed the movie,” Senior Daniel Triveno said. “It was something different from other horror and sci-fi movies I’ve seen this year.”
Compared to Jordan Peele’s other two horror films “Us” and “Get Out”, this does not have a very complex plot, but the interesting visuals and ideas make up for it.
“The movie was well made, and despite its high budget, it still feels like Peele is sticking to a frugal ethos,” Senior Evan Ruiz said.
Woodside students enjoyed this one, but they didn’t like it as much as Jordan Peele’s other two films.
“I thought that this movie ranked lowest against the other movies Jordan Peele has made, or at least the movies I have seen from him,” Triveno said. “Especially ‘Get Out’. I thought that movie was disturbing, engaging, and just overall really interested me.”
Senior Drake Philips agreed.
“I saw ‘Get Out’,” Philips stated. “I felt that it got close, but “Get Out” still holds the title as one of the best horror movies of all time. It’s hard to compare the two because they are both good in their own ways, some more than others.”
The same student had some thoughts about how a certain scene in the movie could be changed.
“I wish Jordan Peele went deeper with more explanations,” Philips said. “Although I love speculating and looking things up, I would’ve loved it if Jordan went deeper into the ape scene, explaining the shoe and what happened to the cast of Gordy’s home.”
A big strength of the movie is the cinematography. There are many nice shots of the sky and clouds. The movie was shot with IMAX cameras so it has a very wide and deep look to it. It was also shot day for night, which means it was filmed in the day and then a filter was put on for all the nighttime scenes. This gave all those scenes an eerie dark blue tint.
“It’s definitely unique. Jordan Peele’s camera is refreshingly eclectic, if a bit derivative,” Ruiz said.
The scariness of the film resulted in mixed reactions. Technically it is classified as “sci-fi horror,” but some people found it chilling and creepy and some didn’t.
“Largely, I didn’t find the movie scary,” Ruiz stated. “Most of it felt more like an action movie, though I can see some scenes striking people as disturbing or horrific.”
Daniel Triveno also had thoughts on how scary the film is.
“I thought that it could have been more scary by adding some pop scares but that’s my personal opinion, but I would consider this a horror movie and disturbing,” Triveno said.
This movie is a mixed bag. Some scenes feel derivative, and there is a need to further explore certain elements such as the chimp scene. On the other hand, it seems like none of the students hated this movie. They all found it enjoyable and thought the visuals were interesting. Lastly, the horror element is mixed, as some found it creepy and others thought it was lacking in the scary/horror scenes.
“I think I jumped once at a jump scare,” Philips said. “It wasn’t a very scary movie, but there was definitely an eerie feeling throughout the movie.”
