Jordan Peele's return to the big screen is a tremendous, refreshing change of pace to the recent Hollywood flops and disappointments the recent MCU films have been.
Jordan Peele is in top form with his recent film Nope. I am very pleasantly surprised with how well done this was and how much I enjoyed this film. I had no doubt with Jordan Peele he would do something good but he has set a new bar in the psychological, thriller, horror genre.
I don't know where to start as I have so many thoughts racing through my brain, so I'll start simple. Great cinematography this film was beautiful and looked great on the IMAX screen. Great writing and I have to stop to say the writing in this film is superior to the writing in Get Out and Us. Jordan Peele's writing talent has come a long way since those films. The dialogue and chemistry between actors and characters was so organic, it just felt so natural and nothing feeling forced. Speaking of things not feeling forced the comedy and jokes, all do so well and don't detract from the serious tone of the film.
Which will lead me to great acting. Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Brandon Perea, and Steven Yeun (just to name a few of the films stars) all give tremendous performances. It was so great to see Steven Yeun as I haven't seen him in anything since he starred as Glenn Rhee in The Walking Dead. Amazing sound design and sound effects, it truly brought the tension and horror to tremendous heights it had me on the edge of my sit.
Now I want to discuss the viewing experience as it has been a long time since a horror film truly had an impact on me. Some genuinely terrifying moments that like I said had me on the edge of my seat. I am not easily scared and jump scares I find them to be cheap and weak but there were some scares here that genuinely made me jump. At one moment I found myself saying "nope, not today Satan" I'm sure there will be a lot of "nope" remarks from audience members. But is this worth the IMAX screen? To that question I'd say yes and no. This film did not make much use of IMAX cameras which throughout the film made me question why is it in IMAX? But I have to say when the IMAX sequences finally came along it was great. The utilization of the IMAX cameras in certain scenes made for a great pay off and of course coupled with the great IMAX sound it heightened the viewing experience. But I can't say it was a must watch in IMAX. To steer away from spoilers I will simply say a teaser trailer for a certain upcoming film from my favorite director made watching it in IMAX well worth it.
I'll start wrapping this up as I'm sure some people who saw the amount of text in this review thought "nope, I'm not reading all that" no pun intended. The only real downside of this film for me was it did lose a little steam in the conclusion and I didn't feel satisfied nor unsatisfied. I still have a lot of questions and would like some more information but perhaps these questions are answered in the film and I missed them. I definitely plan on multiple viewings of this film.
This is my new favorite Jordan Peele film, better than his recent film Us and right up there with Get Out while surpassing it. I would rate this film between a 8.5 or 8.9 but because I don't like half scores I'm going to give it the full 9 because of how this film at moments genuinely had me jumping. It was a fun, exciting, thrill ride from start to finish. I look forward to whatever comes next from Jordan Peele.
IMDb: 9/10
Letterboxd: 4/5
Watched in IMAX Theater.
