‘Nope’ Review: Jordan Peele’s UFO Drama Has a Mood of Exciting Unease But an Arbitrary Story
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticJordan Peele’s “Nope” is a tantalizingly creepy mixed bag of a sci-fi thriller. It’s a movie that taps into our fear and awe of UFOs, and for a while it holds us in a shivery spell.
It picks the audience up and carries it along, feeding off spectral hints of the otherworldly. Yet watching the movie, you can just about taste the DNA of Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “Nope” mirrors the trajectory of other films that have been made in the shadow of “Close Encounters,” like M.
Night Shyamalan’s “Signs” and Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival.” Here, as in those films, the anticipation works better than the payoff.
Daniel Kaluuya, an actor so skillful he seems to overhaul his spirit with every role, plays the central character, Otis Haywood Jr., a sweet-souled but recessive and taciturn country fellow who goes by the nickname of OJ.
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