2y ago

Oppenheimer (Spoilers)

Premise:

        The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.

Directors:

        Christopher Nolan

Writers:

        Christopher Nolan, Kai Bird, Martin Sherwin

Cast:

        Cillian Murphy 	        ... 	J. Robert Oppenheimer
    Emily Blunt 	        ... 	Kitty Oppenheimer
    Robert Downey Jr. 	... 	Lewis Strauss
    Alden Ehrenreich 	... 	Senate Aide
    Scott Grimes 	        ... 	Counsel
    Jason Clarke 	        ... 	Roger Robb
    Kurt Koehler 	        ... 	Thomas Morgan
    Tony Goldwyn 	        ... 	Gordon Gray
    John Gowans 	        ... 	Ward Evans
    Macon Blair      	... 	Lloyd Garrison
    James D'Arcy     	... 	Patrick Blackett
    Kenneth Branagh 	... 	Niels Bohr

RELEASE DATE	RUNTIME	ROTTENTOMATOES	IMDB	METACRITIC
July 21st, 2023	3hr	TBD	TBD	TBD

32 comments

Updoot for much nicer formatting than reddit.
Will check back on Friday once I’ve seen it.
- haha, appreciate it!
Thanks for this post. This is one of the things that I missed the most about reddit, getting to the main post after seeing a movie. Unfortunately it seems that the number of comments is not the same (expected) and still quite low so I'll do my part and contribute my opinion.
I'll go a bit against the grain here and say that for me this film is not a 10/10 at all, like people are making it to be. It's good and it has definitely it's moments, but I found the timeline and so many arcs confusing and unnecessary. Sometimes everything is dished out at once, when it doesn't require so, and it makes it hard to keep up.
I'll concede that I usually watch movies at home where I can have English subtitles on which usually help with some of the more baffled dialogue (and Nolan suffers this the most) but I don't think it was because of that, that I felt this way.
Once again it feels like Nolan is getting in his own way with all the time jumps and multiple timelines, and while for some movies that "feature" is THE movie, like in TENET or Inception, here it is not needed at all like in both of these movies, and it is not executed well (like it is done amazingly in inception where a 5 layered story is perfectly displayed and understood).
In the end Oppie's character also comes out as suprisingly bland, and while I appreciate that they didn't make him neither a saviour or a villain, they also somehow managed to make him rather boring.
In the end I would rate this movie around 8/10 or 7.5/10 because technically and artistically it has its moments but I feel like if this wasn't a Nolan film it wouldn't have this much hype behind it.
I thought it was an absolutely amazing movie. The portrait it paints of Oppenheimer is a complicated man. The flim goes to great lengths to make the viewer understand Oppenheimer while not letting him off the hook. There's much similarities between the themes used in the Batman movies and in Oppenheimer. They'll use him when they need him but discard him once they don't. This is a common theme present in Nolans work. Humans are fickle and two faced in Nolan movies. Nolan seems to have to cynical view of people.
Ok, finally got to see it and I am flabbergasted. This may be Nolan's best movie for me. I didn't pay attention to the casting too much for this and this cast is absolutely stacked. Everyone is amazing in the movie. I was particularly impressed with David Krumholtz. It's so amazing to see this actor who's most well known scene is talking about how magical Katie Holmes' breasts are to where he is now. A great character actor. I really couldn't believe how many big actors in this and also have super small roles. I thought Rami Malek wasn't going to have any lines at all until the last 20 minutes.
RDJ just disappeared into the role for me. I didn't even recognize him at first. I was only reminded it was RDJ when he got loud a couple times and I heard his normal nasally voice. Cillian Murphy was absolutely fantastic and I'm so glad he got to be the leading character again. The only person I felt was miscast was Casey Affleck. They were painting his character as this hardened, intimidating person and Casey just didn't pull that off to me.
For me, the highlight of the whole movie was the sound design. The clicking of the Geiger counter mixed with the music when Oppenheimer was talking to his wife about they were about to test and if successful to pull the sheets in really had this sense of dread that added to the scene fantasticly. And the speech where the cheering dropped out and he was seeing visions was just "chef's kiss".
I really don't understand some of the criticism I've seen for this movie. I do agree that Nolan has a problem writing women and the women in this are like most of his films and are there mostly to drive the actions of men. It didn't bother me too much in this but it is noticeable. The people complaining about the explosion not being this epic thing, I feel like missed the whole point of that scene. It isn't about the explosion, it's about all the people's reactions to it. Especially the scene immediately following where everyone is cheering, basically for their own destruction. Only Oppenheimer can see what has been truly unleashed on the world. The movie is not about the bomb, but about the man. It's a true biopic.
I am glad the film didn't make Oppenheimer out to be a hero nor a villain. He was a deeply complicated man, and I feel like the film painted him as a man full of ambition, confusion, and ultimately regret. The movie is also one of the most well paced films I've ever seen. 3 hours flew by and I was never bored. All in all, not much to complain about and I think it's a masterpiece.
I loved it! Nolan masterfully intertwined timelines, an absolute riveting telling of history. The acting, score, and cinematography were all on point. I miss the days that this caliber of filmmaking wasn’t so few and far between.
Ok, hear me out. I really like Cillian and RDJ in this movie, and the performances all the way were incredible.
But I got a massive disappointment when the explosion happened. People touted left and right how it was done only with practical effects, no CG! And in the end it looked like a warehouse exploded, it was so tiny. Was the real atomic bomb that underwhelming?
Other than that, the 3 hours flew by. I was engaged the whole time, it was an amazing piece of cinema.
- I thought it was the other way around.
  The silence when the explosion happened engulfing the screen with fire, letting it sink for you that how destructive it is, followed by the boom to shake you with its impact was so well done.
- For me, this movie is a tragedy; the real explosion was the juxtaposition of the project team celebrating while what boils down to the death of 70k Japanese. Phenomenal - without being judgmental.
  The actual trinity test in the film — felt like it was intended not to awe nor overwhelm us but to give us space to allow us to reflect on our relationship with fire, weapons and war (vs a spectacular explosion ala Death Star).
  So for those of us who are literalists…I can see how it might not rank up there, lacking the raw impact of say Terminator.
- I was also underwhelmed by the execution of the Trinity test specifically. I know they relied on solely practical effects, so it’s not realistic that they would match the awe of the actual test footage.
  It didn’t leave with the same existential dread like other relevant media has in the past.
  
  But the dread is that the world has the atomic bomb at it's fingertips now
Emily Blunt killed it in this movie
Excellent, excellent. I would have to call myself a Nolan fan, since as much as it was hard to hear and follow Tenet I still find myself wanting to watch it again. Of course it wouldn't be a Nolan film if there wasn't some time skipping around, I liked the use of black and white for the "future" parts which eventually changed to color when the main narrative caught up. I believe he did that in Memento as well.
Cillian Murphy absolutely killed it, I really enjoyed him and Matt Damon together. A lot of strong performances also from RDJ and Emily Blunt as other has mentioned. I really believed Oppie was talking shit to Einstein from the way RDJ described it, he was able to transfer his self importance onto me as well.
Overall it has me wanting to know more about the history of Oppenheimer and the whole event, which I don't know if that is the point of a biopic but hey that's cool. Of course it is not completely accurate to what happened but I wondered which parts are closer to the truth than others.
Phenomenal movie. Really great job with the psychological side of the movie. A lot to take in even though it’s 3 hours long.
Great character driven movie. The performances were great and the movie flew by. Will definitely watch it again.
@canthidium I am a huge Chris Nolan fanboy. His first "based-on-true-events" movie 'Dunkirk' was still good to it's cinematography but not my favourite when it comes to storytelling. That's why I had no fanboy expectations on 'Oppenheimer'.
I am pretty excited after having watched it yesterday in our local cinema. Taking a bio pic into a 3h polit thriller, high pace at least through the great editing, perfect story telling in my opinion. 10/10
I didn’t love it.
I respect the technical mastery on display here. But this is my problem with a lot of Christopher Nolan movies: it’s devoid of any emotional connection. I just felt empty and hollow at the end of it. Didn’t help that the first 30 minutes felt so disjointed and the pacing really struggled. I’ve never been a fan of his sound editing/mixing and same applied here. It was loud and bombastic but half the time I couldn’t hear the damn dialogue. The movie was way overscored and I rolled my eyes at some unnecessary inserts and on-the-nose exposition.
I also hated the way female characters were handled in the movie, just like most of Nolan’s previous work. I’m very iffy about the screenplay and editing too. The movie didn’t need the typical Nolan-esque non-linear format; it actually took a lot away from it.
On the other hand, it was a god damn tour de force from Cillian Murphy and equally excellent work from Robert Downey Jr. Emily Blunt was also stellar in a very limited role and she made a meal out of what she could. Should be easy Oscar nominations for Murphy and Downey.
Oh but that lead up to the final Los Alamos test was thrilling and expertly executed. Downey also crushed the last act of the film.
Definitely some good stuff here but I’m underwhelmed by the overall product. But I say that about every Nolan movie, save for I guess The Prestige and Memento, and to a lesser extent, Dunkirk.
- I didn't love it even more than you.
  After waiting a month to see it in the true-IMAX theater that Nolan used for projection tests (tix were sold-out that far in advance, unless you wanted to sit in the first 2 rows)--I ended up walking out around the 90 minute mark.
  Other than ego, I cannot for the life of me figure out why Nolan felt he had to shoot a movie that is a lot of close-ups of actors talking indoors in full, 15-perf, 70mm IMAX.
  Bottom line is that I was just incredibly bored and emotionally uninvolved in anything that was happening. I'm quite familiar with post-war, McCarthy-era witch hunts, so there was no drama there for me.
  I enjoyed The Prestige and The Dark Knight--but Nolan just doesn't impress me as a director any more.
  
  @wilberfan @mancy Oppenheimer represented Nolan's strengths and weaknesses as a filmmaker.
  Nolan has never been afraid to challenge his audience intellectually, so the scenes where smart characters are engaged into rigorous scientific debate is where Oppenheimer works. For audiences who enjoyed Apollo 13, A Dangerous Mind and Hidden Figures, this film fits snugly into that category.
  But the characters are outdated stereotypes, especially the women, wasting the talents of Pugh and Blunt.
- Man are you me? I 100% agree with all that you said even with the fact that Nolan’s movies are overrated except Memento, The Prestige and Dunkirk.
  
  🙌
Ugh, it's getting hard to not read the responses to this thread in my inbox, lol. I have been trying the last 2 days to go see it but it's completely sold out or just crappy up front seats. I think I'm going to have to wait and go early during the week.
- Just saw it today and loved it. Did you see it yet?
I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Bravo Nolan.
About to see it at 5. I will report back!
Just saw it, and I feel like in some ways I'm still recovering from the experience. This might be his best film. The cheering. Man, the cheering is what will stay with me. As will that last line of dialogue.
Interesting movie :)
I unfortunately missed the first 15 minutes because I was in line getting snacks... DON'T DO THIS
It took me a second to make sense of the nonlinear timeline and who Strauss was and what his motivations were
It didn't feel like 3 hours and I'm hard pressed to find any flaws in it.

32 comments