Nope (Jordan Peele, USA/Japan 2022) is a film attempting to serve many masters at once. It simultaneously seeks to be a summer blockbuster film and an artistic statement. It simultaneously attempts to re-take a mythology out of one genre into its older genre home while also moving that mythology away from its pre-Christian origins into modern Christianity. It simultaneously attempts to revive the ‘90s-style explosions-and-humor “sci-fi” blockbuster while telling a fundamentally Black story. It even tries to do a Robert Altman trick of telling you it’s about movies and then hiding that ever-after.

            It’s biting off an unbelievable amount—most films don’t even have a mouth this big, let alone the audacity to attempt to use it all—and while it’s able to get its teeth on everything, it isn’t really able to chew them completely.