Oppenheimer - Movie Review
1"Oppenheimer" (2023) written and directed by Christopher Nolan is a biographical epic starring a lot of A-listers who give great performances. I do think it's important to tamper our opinions a little bit though, because this is by no means the greatest film ever made like it may seem so at first, in fact it's not even close to the quality of Christopher Nolan's best film "The Dark Knight" (2008) when it probably should have been.
Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is the pioneer of American theoretical physics. He is recruited by Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) to direct the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. Adolf Hitler has shot himself and the war is coming to an end, but Japan refuses to surrender. Oppenheimer is tasked with creating the world's deadliest super weapon: an atomic bomb which will be detonated over two Japanese cities called Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this story is entirely real and historically accurate.
Oppenheimer is definitely a great film, and it's not as complicated as it might seem so I encourage you to give it a chance even if you are initially intimidated. It's also a great way to learn some important history about the world in a more entertaining and engaging fashion than just reading an old history book. The strongest aspect of this film is by far the cast and their performances. I felt nothing else really came close to the high stature of this one element and that really is the main thing to be praised here.
Where Oppenheimer loses some points is it's staggering length and the decision to make the atomic bomb itself more of a B story in favor of the less interesting Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) personal beef and security clearance issues. I also felt the technical jargon was unnecessary and could go overboard at times, because the film isn't nearly as genius or clever as it seems to think it is I felt. This is a relatively simple story that was greatly extended in an attempt to be as epic as possible, but it is clearly not as epic as literally any other one of Nolan's films and is much more of a glorified history lesson disguised as a Nolan epic. The last thing which bothered me is how utterly wasted both Emily Blunt & Florence Pugh are, their characters form this stupid love triangle with Oppenheimer that is never properly hashed out . . . Now if the argument is that the portrayal of women was accurate to this time period, I think a better solution would have been to just not include them at all and make it an all male cast; as opposed to giving these two lovely ladies dreadful trashy roles which contribute nothing but annoyance to the story.
Oppenheimer is a great history lesson with great actors. If you were expecting something epic or with huge visual flair you will be disappointed though.
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