Oppenheimer is a technically impressive production with a stellar cast supporting an award-worthy lead performance by Cillian Murphy. Director Christopher Nolan structures a three-hour biopic as a nail-biting thriller, a literal ticking time bomb. It's a brilliant spin on the biopic, even to its detriment when the story requires quieter moments.
Cillian Murphy captures J. Robert Oppenheimer's inner complexity, wrestling between moral dilemma, scientific ambition, and patriotism. This intimate character portrait viscerally shows the weight of the world on his shoulders, illustrating his need for love from multiple women, and is too occupied to return it.
It's psychologically unnerving to experience Oppenheimer's story from his point of view. I caught myself rooting for Oppenheimer and pinched myself, "Wait, no. He's creating the atomic bomb. I can't root for him." Then, I immediately remembered that the man had already finished the job. Thus, there was an immense dread watching the events unfold.
Robert Downey Jr. Morphs into Senator Lewis Strauss, a reminder of his acting talent before Iron Man. Downey drops his usual box of tricks, plays a non-showy, uncool part with no distinct zingers, and creates a fresh onscreen presence.
Unfortunately, the film doesn't spend enough time developing Senator Strauss for him to be an effective antagonist. His story builds to a climactic moment that is more head-scratching than shocking. Immediately after the credits rolled, I read up on Senator Strauss to verify whether his petty jealousy of Oppenheimer existed. Whether this Mozart-Salieri dynamic was true or false, it wasn't dramatized to full effect.
Oppenheimer is disappointingly a much chattier film than anticipated and never holds the audience's hands. Even with a basic knowledge of historical events and the key players, it was challenging to keep up with all the multiple characters and information firing at a breakneck pace for three hours.
While it can be argued that shooting dialogue on IMAX cameras immerses the audience in the drama, Hoyte Van Hoytema's IMAX photography was more of a marketing ploy as part of Nolan's brand than a storytelling tool. The bomb test sequence, which the entire film counts down towards, is an exhilarating cinematic set piece but it left a lot to be desired for the rest of the runtime.
The latter half oddly focuses on politics. Oppenheimer's guilt and the aftermath of the bomb, which I thought was the more dramatic and intriguing story, comes up short. The things that Nolan chose to visualize onscreen and the things he left offscreen were perplexing and undramatic.
Oppenheimer is far from being Christopher Nolan's best film. It's not a bad film, but it's the least entertaining and lowest in his filmography.
Nolan's artistic highpoint is still in Inception, where he perfectly balanced exposition and spectacle, pushing the audiences' mental quota and even accurately predicting when the audience needed to be reminded whose dream it was.
Every film since Inception has leaned towards the experimental, tipping the scales over to spectacle with gradually less explanation of what's going on, trusting the audience will figure it out as they're experiencing it. What he used to do was just more entertaining; the cerebral aspect of his high concept ideas require more explanation and constant updates.
There's a trend of watching Nolan movies more than once to fully grasp his nonlinear complex narratives. Admittedly, repeat viewings were fun until Tenet, where understanding the plot felt like a logistical chore. Nolan's storytelling has leaned into complexity so much that it's become exploitative of the audiences' wallets. A film should be understood within one viewing. Can we all agree on that?
Back in the day, I'd rewatch Oppenheimer again in theaters with the humble assumption that I overlooked the story, technical details, or overall craft. This time, I distinctly felt there was nothing to reexamine at all. Oppenheimer just simply doesn't come together as well as his past films. It just didn't explode...
Cillian Murphy captures J. Robert Oppenheimer's inner complexity, wrestling between moral dilemma, scientific ambition, and patriotism. This intimate character portrait viscerally shows the weight of the world on his shoulders, illustrating his need for love from multiple women, and is too occupied to return it.
It's psychologically unnerving to experience Oppenheimer's story from his point of view. I caught myself rooting for Oppenheimer and pinched myself, "Wait, no. He's creating the atomic bomb. I can't root for him." Then, I immediately remembered that the man had already finished the job. Thus, there was an immense dread watching the events unfold.
Robert Downey Jr. Morphs into Senator Lewis Strauss, a reminder of his acting talent before Iron Man. Downey drops his usual box of tricks, plays a non-showy, uncool part with no distinct zingers, and creates a fresh onscreen presence.
Unfortunately, the film doesn't spend enough time developing Senator Strauss for him to be an effective antagonist. His story builds to a climactic moment that is more head-scratching than shocking. Immediately after the credits rolled, I read up on Senator Strauss to verify whether his petty jealousy of Oppenheimer existed. Whether this Mozart-Salieri dynamic was true or false, it wasn't dramatized to full effect.
Oppenheimer is disappointingly a much chattier film than anticipated and never holds the audience's hands. Even with a basic knowledge of historical events and the key players, it was challenging to keep up with all the multiple characters and information firing at a breakneck pace for three hours.
While it can be argued that shooting dialogue on IMAX cameras immerses the audience in the drama, Hoyte Van Hoytema's IMAX photography was more of a marketing ploy as part of Nolan's brand than a storytelling tool. The bomb test sequence, which the entire film counts down towards, is an exhilarating cinematic set piece but it left a lot to be desired for the rest of the runtime.
The latter half oddly focuses on politics. Oppenheimer's guilt and the aftermath of the bomb, which I thought was the more dramatic and intriguing story, comes up short. The things that Nolan chose to visualize onscreen and the things he left offscreen were perplexing and undramatic.
Oppenheimer is far from being Christopher Nolan's best film. It's not a bad film, but it's the least entertaining and lowest in his filmography.
Nolan's artistic highpoint is still in Inception, where he perfectly balanced exposition and spectacle, pushing the audiences' mental quota and even accurately predicting when the audience needed to be reminded whose dream it was.
Every film since Inception has leaned towards the experimental, tipping the scales over to spectacle with gradually less explanation of what's going on, trusting the audience will figure it out as they're experiencing it. What he used to do was just more entertaining; the cerebral aspect of his high concept ideas require more explanation and constant updates.
There's a trend of watching Nolan movies more than once to fully grasp his nonlinear complex narratives. Admittedly, repeat viewings were fun until Tenet, where understanding the plot felt like a logistical chore. Nolan's storytelling has leaned into complexity so much that it's become exploitative of the audiences' wallets. A film should be understood within one viewing. Can we all agree on that?
Back in the day, I'd rewatch Oppenheimer again in theaters with the humble assumption that I overlooked the story, technical details, or overall craft. This time, I distinctly felt there was nothing to reexamine at all. Oppenheimer just simply doesn't come together as well as his past films. It just didn't explode...