I recently watched Nope (2022) and was quite intrigued/excited to see what it was about. I had a general idea about flying saucers, mystery and perhaps some Jordon Peele-esque allusions to things like filmmaking/sci-fi tropes/etc.
This film made no sense, and almost all of the elements are undercooked and half-baked in my sure-to-be-flamed opinion ;)
Let's start with the obvious flaws:
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D. Kaluuya - acting was catatonic and truly uninspired. I like this dude, but I wouldn't call this a high point for him AT ALL. His arc in this story also made no sense and "random" is what I would describe his impact. For some reason lots of people give him the benefit of the doubt here but I'm not seeing it. Could possibly be replaced by pretty much any comparable actor in this role.
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Steven Yeun's character - probably the most intriguing part of the story, made no sense. And this comes from a Twin Peaks fan who often looks for underlying meaning to subtle plot points and general mood that probably goes nowhere but up a butthole lol. There was lots of slow-zooms and mysterious camera angles but ultimately his arc didn't accomplish anything except be a red herring? Maybe I'm missing something but my general feeling is there were cuts made to his side of the story and it messed up the meaning. Anyone agree? I truly like Yeun as an actor but this just wasn't it.
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The monkey scenes. I mean, this piqued my curiosity throughout, and I was begging for it to come back round and imbue the film with a underlying message of....something...anything...I'm truly confused about what Peele thought he was communicating here with these vignettes? Once again, maybe I'm missing something so if someone can help, that would be appreciated.
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The ending: To me, a good ending has to have some level of threat or risk involved. The good guys have to overcome or not overcome a challenge and this leads to a satisfying conclusion (for me personally). However, like other not-so-good films I've seen, this "threat" is never really present, and the "good guys" kind of accomplish...something...just in the nick of time? Before what?
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That saucer: now I know this is a personal subjective thing, but for some reason, the flying cowboy hat with a butthole never truly landed for me...Maybe he was trying to say something about filmmakers being up their own butts? Truly baffling stuff. It kinda ruined my immersion and I think a more traditional saucer would actually have helped since the overt mixing tropes and allusions kind of muddled an already muddled story.
Sorry for the long ramble, I'm truly looking for some discussion around these points in good faith. I realise lots of people liked this film but I wouldn't give this anything higher than The Matrix Resurrections, which was also a truly confusing journey from a filmmaker probably overstretching themselves. Also if I need to censor anything in the post please let me know - trying to be vague as possible for those who haven't seen it.