The residents of a lonely gulch in inland California bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery.

Jordan Peele’s latest movie starring his favorite actor (Daniel Kaluuya) sets out to make UFOs the front and center of it’s compelling and excellent suspense building story.

 The film has a dominant theme all about the Hollywood film industry life because the two main character OJ and Emerald own a ranch of movie horses meant to supply the film industry. That is the backdrop of the story of OJ and family as they begin experiencing bizarre sightings of a UFO on their property. Nope takes notes out of the old Creature Feature style of movies where A team of characters are stalked by an otherworldly creature and eventually must battle it. This film does a great job building suspense and horror within its audience and characters on screen. The UFO zips through the sky quietly and camouflages itself in a cloud stuck in the sky. Peele does a great job of convincing the audience that the UFO is in-fact otherworldly and has a keen interest in the Haywood ranch.

There is a huge twist toward the middle of the film that points to the creature in this feature being more familiar and closer to human’s than we realize. I won’t reveal much more than that. Instead, I want to talk about a huge plot hole.

The Haywood family experiences increasingly closer sightings of an alien UFO, and they attempt to capture it on camera. The UFO can snuff out any electrical signal within about a 100-yard radius give or take. Namely because this isn’t Independence Day, and the alien is not dead or being studied in a lab. The lack of world building in act 3 is worth noting but I will touch on that in a second. Since this UFO creature is like a close radius EMP the Haywood’s look to a legendary filmmaker they meet on set who can use old film cameras to capture the UFO and prove it to – well they never explained that.

The Camera Plot Hole

There are several scenes that show the radius of the emp pulse from the UFO. An intruder trying to record the saucer rides and electric bike onto the property and gets hit by the EMP and wipes out. Back up batteries in their security cameras die. Their phones and walkies go out. I want to know why they didn’t hire out a commercial broadcast camera with a Digi power lens. Digi power lenses have a ridiculous focal length of something like 10-4000mm, The Heywood’s could have ditched their emulsion filmmaker friend and instead got one of these:

If they had placed this power zoom camera in another zip code they could have gotten great footage of the saucer on their property by distracting it and keeping it in one place. So that was a significant plot hole that I spotted towards the end of the movie.

Anyway

Lack of ending

Nope takes it’s time setting up the threat of the UFO creature. Too much time in fact which caused the film to rush the climax and abandon any resolution. I was awaiting the aftermath of Emerald and OJ getting rich or something off the photos they successfully took. Even a brief Good Morning America mock interview would have been a great sum up post ending. I was definitely left wanting more out of the resolution of this film.

Overall: Jordan Peele did an excellent job building up the horror in this film however a huge plot hole and lack of real resolution left an uneasy taste in my mouth.

Popcorn Movie | Good Suspense. Creature Feature Classic Material. Campy at times and underdeveloped 8/10