Nope (2022)

I'm always very nervous when a film's advertising campaign leads extensively on the director and not on the acting... To be honest, here, I really couldn't quite see what the fuss was about on either front. A pretty monosyllabic "OJ" (Daniel Kaluuya) lives with his feisty sister "Emerald" (Keke Palmer) on a remote stud farm where they provide horses for the movies. When strange things start going bump in the night, and the horses start behaving oddly, then disappearing all together - they are bemused. Off to town they go where they meet local geek "Torres" (Brandon Perea) who is full to the brim with alien conspiracy theories and who comes and installs some CCTV for them. What now ensues is a quirky, rather poorly paced sci-fi caper that takes far too long to get going and then when it does, well it sort of rumbles along with loads of pretty repetitive photography, minimalist dialogue and an ending that made me chuckle - and I am not sure that was Jordan Peele's intention. The plot reminded me of something from the "Outer Limits" from the 1960s! There is certainly some lovely scenery to be admired in this California valley but all in all I was totally underwhelmed by this film, the best bits I felt, were seen in the trail.