Nope

Après le présomptueux Us, dans lequel la critique et la métaphore sociales laminaient le fonctionnement du film dans son ensemble, Jordan Peele revient, dans Nope, à une idée simple enchâssée dans un spectacle de genre fonctionnel, tel qu’il l’avait fait avec Get Out. Et il a reproduit parfaitement ce charme spielbergien où l’on s’émerveille devant l’élément surnaturel, avec des touches mesurées de comédie, des moments d’horreur glaceuse de sang et, surtout, de l’aventure. Un film d’aventure aussi épique avec en plus l’impression de vivre cette aventure exclusive avec les personnages, ça faisait longtemps ! Pour moi, c’est clairement un pouce en l’air. Avec ce film, Jordan Peele se dévoile-t-il en génie du septième art et en maître du film d’épouvante, comme les médias américains et la critique essaient de le présenter ? Pas du tout. Mais est-il un cinéaste intéressant et talentueux dont la filmographie vaut-la peine d’être suivie ? Absolument. (10/09/2022)

Pour un spectateur qui connaît le talent de réalisateur de Peele ainsi que les limites de son écriture, Nope est exactement le genre de plaisanterie annoncée par la bande-annonce. Peele sait filmer pratiquement n'importe quelle scène de manière engageante. Cependant, quand ces scènes, qui durent cent minutes, n'évoquent que peu de choses et que certaines d'entre elles n'ont aucun sens significatif pour une histoire déjà peu dense (l'Asiatique et le chimpanzé), cela devient simplement une manipulation superficielle. Le mélange inhabituel de motifs de genres de Peele (ici la science-fiction d'horreur et le western) peut sembler audacieux et original, mais dans un film qui veut effrayer mais en même temps est en train de balancer vers la parodie, la vision créative est perdue. Nope se situe quelque part entre Get Out, qui reposait sur une idée géniale, et Us, qui était une absurdité ridicule. (28/08/2022)

Jordan Peele has once again proven that he's an intriguing director, just like he did with Get Out. In Nope, he delves into themes that no one else has touched, blending a unique black perspective with mysticism, aliens, and a Western vibe. Sounds like a mess? Just watch Nope. It might seem crazy, and it is, but it's an atmospherically genius kind of crazy, with stunning cinematography. I haven't been so captivated by shots of clouds in a long time. The film is filled with more WTF moments than you can imagine, and its ending is fantastic — though it does dip into a Hollywood vibe just when you think it's entirely anti-Hollywood. For those moments and the riveting conclusion, this movie truly deserves your attention. I haven't watched TV with such interest and curiosity in a long time. (24/05/2024)

For two thirds the film is a compelling, engrossing and carefully constructed horror-thriller mystery that kept me engaged as the characters struggled to get to the bottom of the mystery. This part of Nope, which I was very pleased with, culminated in a magnificent night scene with "blood rain" that made me glow with bliss and consider awarding five star to a horror flick for the first time in a long time. But, as you can see, I didn’t go further than three. Because the film then turns into an action charade, where you don't care about the characters and just try to catch the design of the weird contraption and figure out if you like it or not. And what shocked me above all is that it doesn't actually come to anything. After his previous two films, you'd expect Jordan Peele to be ... smarter than that? Us may have been logically leaky, but I found its social references were very stimulating (and that goes twofold  for Get Out). There's nothing like that in Nope, or I don't see it there at first. Many people, often dismissively, refer to Peele as the king of "elevated horror", but this is, in the end, more or less an ordinary genre film. In the space of half an hour, the film shoots two or three banal ideas (what people are willing to risk for fame and success / the fascination with tragedy / the stupid notion that man can tame everything), which it then repeats to the point of foolishness, but doesn't take them anywhere. I don't want to sound overly critical, Nope is definitely nice to look at, it has a number of impressive scenes and it's certainly a good film to see in the cinema, but after the excellent first two acts I can't help feeling disappointed at the end. (17/08/2022)

Siblings OJ and Emerald are struggling with a failing farm, their own relationship, and now with something hiding in the clouds, and as it soon turns out, it's pretty damn dangerous. Only how do you expose this thing, which is good at hiding and doesn't like to let witnesses in, to the world? And how to survive it? Jordan Peele delivers a science fiction film that doesn't quite work in the first half, and he as a director doesn't quite manage to build the tension as well as he might have liked. But he makes up for it all with the final act, when the humans and the mysterious something from the clouds have a fair fight. The closer we get to the end, the smarter and more entertaining Nope gets. And it looks really beautiful. But Peele still can't do real fear and terror. (17/08/2022)