Grant Denbaugh

*Spoilers Follow* The initial trailer for "Nope" garnered excitement for obvious reasons. The trailer teased alien creatures, a fist bump from an unknown source, the mystery of the disfigured woman in the crowd, an ominous figure on a motorcycle, a crab in a dollhouse, and even Biblical themes by asking "what is a bad miracle?" What the viewer recieved was a lackluster movie that lacked the social and poltical commentary of "Get Out" and "Us". All the intrigue from the trailer proved to be inconsequential to the movie which was extremely frustrating to witness. The most clear example of this is the highly anticipated scene where OJ meets the green men in the barn, which turn out to be children that are a part of Jupiter's Claim. The trailer teases the scene as well as even showing merchandise of the Aliens at Ricky's show. Speaking of Ricky, the movie begins extremely strong with the first look at Gordy. The Gordy sequence was the highlight of the film, but it felt out of place and unnecessary for the film. Proponets of the film claim that since Ricky could control Gordy, he felt like he could also control the Alien ship, but I disagree. That feels like an incredible reach especially since the Jupiter's Claim scene is so brief. The girl with the disfigured face was a survivor of Gordy and had zero consequence to the movie either but she was an incredible draw to many people when the trailer first was released. Critics claim that the message is that Ricky tried to tame Hollywood and the system ate him and spit him out. Again, if this was the intent, its well hidden and is frustrating for the movie goer. The "twist" to the movie is that the alien craft was the literal alien, but it is not only unsurprising, but boring and unimaginative. The horses had little consequence, the religious themes never appeared outside of the first ten minutes of the film, the horror aspects of the little green men and Gordy were anticlimactic, and everything of interest in the trailer never amounted to anything. Overall, Jordan Peele failed to live up the hype that followed "Get Out" and "Us". He made a better trailer than movie and I hope that his following films return to the deeply thought provoking and psychological roots that he established before. 1/10.