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Movie review: 'Nope' is Jordan Peele's first no-no

O.J. (Daniel Kaluuya) manages his family's ranch in "Nope." Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
1 of 5 | O.J. (Daniel Kaluuya) manages his family's ranch in "Nope." Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

LOS ANGELES, July 20 (UPI) -- Nope, in theaters Friday, is writer/director Jordan Peele's first misstep as a filmmaker. It is a singular artistic misstep though, not a compromised vision.

In the horror movie, Otis Haywood Sr. (Keith David) dies suddenly when debris from a plane falls from the sky. His death leaves O.J. (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) to run the family business of training horses for film shoots.

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Nearby, former child star Jupe Park (Steven Yeun) runs Jupiter's Claim, a Western theme park. A strange stationary cloud in the sky above the Heywood ranch and Jupiter's Claim joins the two worlds and their histories in the entertainment industry.

The theme of Nope is thinner than the themes of Peele's previous films, Get Out and Us. Nope is a cautionary tale about presumptuous humans learning time after time that they cannot control predators.

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That is a valid theme, but at more than 2 hours, with a cumbersome ensemble and flashbacks, it waters down the point. The Haywoods struggle to get film crews to cooperate with animal safety regulations, so when O.J. encounters another creature, he respects its place in the food chain.

Jupe was an actor on a sitcom with a chimpanzee. During an infamous 1998 episode, a popped balloon set off the chimpanzee on a bloody rampage against the cast.

Yet, Jupe hasn't learned the lesson. Today, he's still trying to capitalize on the cloud as an attraction at his theme park.

This is all well and good for a 90-minute parable, but Peele allowed Nope to bloat.

Part of that excess occurs when the Haywoods enlist a Fry's Electronics tech support guru, Angel (Brandon Perea), and cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott) to help them photograph the cloud.

Whether scripted or improvised, too many scenes run on with inane banter that neither builds character nor forwards the plot. For example, long scenes are devoted to Angel coming to the ranch to install the Haywood's equipment.

The material about Angel's personal life and curiosity about extraterrestrials is neither endearing nor informative. O.J. and Emerald are established as contrasting personalities, but both go too far.

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Emerald is so outgoing she's unprofessional at work and seems like she's trying way too hard to act dysfunctional with references to sleeping with her therapists. O.J. is a bit more palatable as the extreme introvert. But the script lacks nuance to write either character so broadly.

O.J. stands for Otis Jr., and one character remarks on his name. It seems the main purpose of giving him that name is so that when he's running from the cloud, Emerald can yell, "Run, O.J., run."

The rest of the jokes in Nope aren't quite as groan-worthy, but they don't land effectively, either. Comic relief can be an asset in horror movies but if you force it, it only detracts from the film.

Nope does a respectable job establishing the rules of the cloud so that the remaining survivors can combat it in the second half. Flashbacks to the chimpanzee attack are effectively composed to set the stage of the sitcom set and the vulnerability of the exposed cast members.

Footage filmed with IMAX cameras is inherently more compelling. Those scenes envelop the viewer, so it is worth seeking out screening in IMAX.

Nope is competently made, but sprawling and unfocused. Perhaps it's good for Peele to get this out of the way early in his film career. Hopefully, he'll be back with something better next time.

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Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001 and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012. Read more of his work in Entertainment.

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