Nope (2022) Review

Nope (2022)

Directed & Written by Jordan Peele

Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea, Keith David

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
It stars Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as horse-wrangling siblings attempting to capture evidence of an unidentified flying object.

My Opinion:

Still trying to decide how I feel about this movie. I liked it (I think) but I also think it’s a bit of a mess. Actually, I think it may be more than “a bit” of a mess but Jordan Peele seems to be one of those current directors who everyone thinks is a genius & can do no wrong (such as Ari Aster, Robert Eggers, etc etc). I have mixed feelings on all their work but the one thing I do like is their originality. I am so bored with sequels, reboots, and superheroes. I want original stories & to have a film actually surprise me sometimes. So I give directors such as these credit for that even though I don’t always like their films.

I like Peele’s ideas. While I wasn’t fully on the Get Out bandwagon, I can see what people saw in it. However, I think Us was pretty great & deserves more credit than it seems to get – I rewatched that again recently & it went up a lot in my estimation. I did find some of that story too messy as well, though, with too many things that didn’t add up. But it sure as hell was an original story, so I love that about it. It’s like Peele is almost there on making a truly brilliant horror film. The potential is there. The storylines need to be tighter.

Nope was a step backwards. While there were parts of it that I liked (the chimp storyline & the design of the reveal of the thing I don’t want to spoil), I think for the most part it’s… kind of a bad film? I feel like, if this was from a different director, it would have been trashed by critics. How can this have a slightly higher rating than Us on Letterboxd? Or am I missing something? I suppose he was going for the “bad ’50s UFO sci-fi movie” thing, which I do appreciate. There’s nothing I love more than sci-fi and I dig that he’s done this funky sci-fi UFO horror thing. It’s why I did still enjoy this movie & am giving it a decent rating despite thinking it’s a mess & not actually very good. But, again, it’s quite an original story so I’m still going to take that over all the sequels, reboots & superheroes. It was far too slow, though. I have patience but it took a very long time for this film to finally get interesting. It’s not a good thing when a movie feels far longer than it actually is. I’m also not sure what point it was trying to make or if it didn’t have much of a message this time and we were just expecting that because of his previous films. And I’d have liked to see much more of the “inside” (trying to avoid spoilers here). I liked that bit a lot. Nice & weird. It gave me brief Under The Skin vibes. We needed more of that weirdness.

I don’t want to ramble on about Nope forever. I’ll leave it here for now as maybe I’ll change my mind on it like I did with Us. I just re-read my Us review and I was pretty lukewarm on that one at first. I can’t see this one going up in my estimation like that did, though. I can’t even see ever wanting to rewatch this to see if my opinion changes so that’s not a good sign as I very happily rewatched Us. I’ll just say that lately I don’t have the time or energy to do long reviews like I used to do on my blog but, sometimes, I end up writing a lot if I find a movie interesting. This is especially true with divisive films – I wrote quite a bit about Ari Aster’s Hereditary & Midsommar. I always prefer divisive films to the many boring films. I like that Peele’s films are thought-provoking in the same way as Aster’s but more palatable. I have yet to really love a film from either director, though. I appreciate their work more than I actually like their work. I think I could love one someday but it’s a nope for Nope being that one.

My Rating: 7/10 (I think I’m being too generous)

Was going to post this with two other movie reviews I’ve done but then this ended up so long I decided to do it as a separate post. So later today I’ll post my double review of two very worthy silent films from the 1920s. Nope felt out of place in the same post as those anyway…

Black Panther (2018) Review

Black Panther (2018)

Directed by Ryan Coogler

Based on Black Panther by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
In Black Panther, T’Challa returns home as king of Wakanda but finds his sovereignty challenged by a long-time adversary, in a conflict that has global consequences.

My Opinion:

I’ll keep this quick. As I say every time, I’m getting quite bored with superhero movies and even more bored with attempting to “review” them. They’re fun to watch & I do enjoy them but I’m not exactly deeply invested in these Marvel storylines. I usually ask the hubby to refresh my memory on characters & previous stories whenever we watch another Marvel film. They’re popcorn movies. I like the eye candy (THOR!) and the action. I’m afraid to say that, with Black Panther, I was thoroughly & very unexpectedly bored for the first half of the film. It does pick up but I really expected the movie to be better than it was. Maybe the hype hurt things. I usually try to avoid hype but it wasn’t easy this time.

Although I was disappointed with the movie itself, I can’t say the same of the characters. I thought they were very strong and I especially loved the three main female characters, who are given loads of screen time and quite frankly steal the show. Don’t get me wrong – Chadwick Boseman is great and Black Panther is a super cool character while Michael B. Jordan made a very good & complex villain but those women kicked ass. But as much as Lupita Nyong’o & especially Danai Gurira kicked ass, it was the wise-cracking little sister Letitia Wright that I most enjoyed. Her cheeky interactions with big brother Boseman were great and the Bond-like scene where she shows off all her fancy gadgets was the absolute best.

Then there was the lovely nation of Wakanda. I think the problem was that the movie took too long to finally let us fully see Wakanda, especially the super cool advanced technology. I found the first half of this movie extremely slow but, okay, I know I’m not a filmmaker and don’t know what could have been done better. All I know is that I was bored for at least an hour, which I can’t say of other Marvel films. Sorry! Wakanda was beautiful. The characters were great (other than Martin Freeman & Andy Serkis, who were written as fools and severely underdeveloped). I just didn’t care about the story. At all. I’m really happy that I liked the characters as this is actually the most important thing to me in films but I was still hoping for a better movie overall.

As I said, though, I don’t normally give too much of a shit about these Marvel storylines. Unfortunately, I think Black Panther has come at a time where I just really can’t get into these movies anymore. After the Guardians Of The Galaxy films (now easily my favorite superhero movies) & Thor: Ragnarok, I know that the more lighthearted & “funny” comic book movies are my thing. Those are definitely the ones for me. Give me Deadpool over Avengers: Infinity War. So I really am sorry for the slightly low rating I’m giving Black Panther. Maybe it doesn’t deserve it but I also believe it doesn’t deserve the massively high ratings I’ve seen. It has some very strong points but it was a disappointment for me personally, especially after the hype. It’s good. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s one of the better comic book movies but it’s not the best.

My Rating: 6.5/10

Get Out (2017) Review

Get Out (2017)

Directed & Written by Jordan Peele

Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, Lakeith Stanfield, Catherine Keener

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
Get Out follows a young interracial couple who visit the mysterious estate of the woman’s parents.

My Opinion:

Get Out was a pretty good and enjoyable film, especially for something from the “horror” genre (90% of modern horror movies suck). Then again, it’s not exactly your typical shitty, slasher-type crap. It had some thought put into it, a decent script & acting, and some likable characters. It also feels somewhat original compared to the usual stale horror movie crap that Hollywood pumps out. However, I don’t think it’s as groundbreaking as I’d expected from the little I had read of it. To be fair, I’m old & watch too many movies so I’m harder to impress but I do feel like I’ve seen this movie a few times already, just with a different spin.

Okay, I can’t do this completely spoiler-free. HUBBY – STOP READING HERE. (He hates even the tiniest spoilers). I’m not exactly going to spoil this movie but I AM going to name a few movies this film immediately brought to my mind as I watched it. So, if you’ve seen them, I guess that spoils this one for you. I’d already heard this movie compared to one specific film when skimming some reviews & it ruined it a bit as it meant the ending wasn’t really a surprise to me. So, SLIGHT SPOILERS NOW:

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This is very much The Stepford Wives (with racism instead of sexism) and I wish I hadn’t read that beforehand. However, I think updating the concept behind The Stepford Wives was actually a good idea & it worked very well in Get Out. I’ve always liked The Stepford Wives (and, bizarrely, The Stepford Children, a cheesy 1987 TV movie that I was obsessed with at the time & reviewed HERE). The other two movies I was reminded of were two guilty pleasures: the body horror classic Society (which I sort-of-reviewed HERE) and the super cheesy but kind of fun The Skeleton Key (which unfortunately has Kate Hudson in it. Ew). Between those three movies, you have Get Out. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing as plenty of movies are influenced by others and Get Out is certainly a better film than The Skeleton Key, is probably better although less memorable than Society, and is a worthy homage to the Stepford films.

I’m not going to ramble on about this film. It’s had excellent reviews & a lot of people really loved it. I can understand why as it’s a well-written social commentary with some fun comic relief provided by the dog-sitting friend. The acting was better than you get in your standard sort of horrors (just Allison Williams was weak) and I really liked the tone & use of music. But I still feel like this story has been done before & the movie is probably getting a little more hype than is deserved just because of its message. And I prefer to think the message is “Rich people are assholes”. Right??? I think that’s something we can all agree on. Yeah. Rich people. Rich people suck. 😉

There is one very important life lesson that I gained from this film: Bangs (or a fringe as they call it in the UK) do NOT suit everyone. Allison Williams, you gotta grow that shit out. That was a very bad decision.

My Rating: 7/10

Sicario (2015) Review

Sicario (2015)

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Starring: Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya, Maximiliano Hernández, Victor Garber, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Donovan, Raoul Trujillo, Julio Cedillo, Hank Rogerson, Bernardo Saracino

Music by Jóhann Jóhannsson

Cinematography by Roger Deakins

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
The film is about a principled FBI agent who is enlisted by a government task force to bring down the leader of a powerful and brutal Mexican drug cartel.

My Opinion:

Ohhh… This movie was GOOD. And to think I wasn’t even necessarily planning on ever watching it! I never really like the crime drama type of genre so, no, this will never exactly be a personal favorite film of mine whereas I LOVE Villeneuve’s Arrival (It’s my favorite genre – So glad he’s going in a sci-fi direction with his movie choices now!!!). But it’s a damn good film even if it’s not usually my sort of thing.

It wasn’t until loving Arrival that I started taking a bit more notice of Villeneuve’s work. It’s why I finally decided to watch Sicario last month (my girl crush on Emily Blunt helped too). I’d already seen a couple of his films and I thought they were pretty good and beautifully filmed but they weren’t really my type of thing either. Wait – I take that back… Enemy was totally my type of thing. I wanted to like that one more than I did. I did appreciate it and think I’d like it more on a re-watch but it was a very slow film & it took a while to get into it. I preferred it to Prisoners, however, but that’s again probably due to me not liking the crime genre. I now really want his Incendies to be one of the next films that I watch for my IMDB Top 250 Project (it’s at #146). With his current popularity I’m hoping it’ll pop up on Netflix or something.

So! Here we are with Sicario – easily my second favorite Villeneuve film I’ve seen so far. I know nothing about filmmaking but this film was beautiful. Those shots of the landscape! It’s a shame that I saw this one on a TV instead of in the cinema. The cinematography & the score created such a rich atmosphere. This combination almost gave me the same sort of feeling as I had while watching Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western epics (I liked the Dollars Trilogy & Once Upon A Time In The West WAY more than I ever expected to, especially having no prior Western movie experience).

I can definitely say that I intend to watch everything made by Villeneuve from now on. This is what I like: Movies that feel like true art. It feels like we don’t get enough “epics” nowadays. And they don’t all have to be artsy fartsy – I’d call Mad Max: Fury Road epic & it’ll still be loved & respected years from now. I blame the general public for the lack of very few all-time great films now, though, not the filmmakers. The majority of people wouldn’t have the patience for a Leone film now – they’d rather go to the next Fifty Shades movie. The next Fast & Furious film will make more money than most of the Best Picture nominees put together (Maybe. I dunno. I’m pulling that statistic out of my ass). Sicario isn’t quite up there with the Leone films but it’s getting close. Arrival is at that level (for me, at least). Both Sicario & Arrival will be seen as all-time classics 20 years from now, which can’t be said of many current films. But the Leone films didn’t really get any respect until years later, right? I think these two Villeneuve films, though respected by the filmmaking community right now, will get more recognition in the future. Arrival won’t win Best Picture and, years from now, people will be all “Why didn’t Arrival win Best Picture that year?!”. Oh well – The Academy never gets it right anymore.

I’m rambling, as usual, so I’ll wrap this up by saying a bit more than “This film is pretty & has a great mood!”. I’m one of those weirdos who cares more about a movie’s director than its stars. If the director is awesome and the story is good, the actors probably won’t f*^k up the film. I mean, I suppose a good director isn’t going to let crappy actors be in their film anyway. However, some credit has to be given to the actors in Sicario. Emily Blunt & Benicio del Toro are especially strong in bringing these characters to life.

Blunt, who kicked ass in Edge Of Tomorrow, again plays a great “tough chick” with a believable vulnerability. Her character isn’t perfect, she doesn’t make all the right decisions, she’s not a machine, she does have emotions, but she stays true to her beliefs to the very end. This is actually a very similar character, belief-wise, to the one in Edge Of Tomorrow and I think Blunt plays these “strong yet vulnerable” roles perfectly. Can we have more roles like these for women, please??? Thank you, Villeneuve, for these strong & believable female roles (Btw – I’ll say it again – Amy Adams was ROBBED of an Oscar nomination for Arrival! Grr).

Benicio del Toro also gives his best performance since the dog-faced boy in Big Top Pee-wee (he must get so sick of people saying that). Seriously, though – I’ve always known he was a good actor but I’ve not paid much attention to him. He’s fantastic in this, especially at the end. He kind of blew me away. He plays this thoroughly complex character with such chilling subtlety. Josh Brolin & Daniel Kaluuya also do brilliantly in supporting roles and I loved how the film captured the strong bonds and sense of extreme loyalty between FBI partners.

Sicario’s slow & deliberate build-up of tension and the reveal of character motivations made for one of the most intense final acts I’ve seen in a while. I admit that it took me a while to get into the film as it’s a topic I certainly can’t relate to and a genre I don’t often choose to watch but it’s so well-made with such rich characters & performances and an ending that had me on the edge of my seat (well, couch). This is damn good filmmaking. I want more of this. Please let Blade Runner 2049 be at least this good!

My Rating: 8/10

**Speaking of the lovely Emily Blunt, it’s her 34th birthday tomorrow so I’ll be posting a list of My Top Ten Emily Blunt Movies. 🙂