Rent Oppenheimer (2023)

Drama-free long-haul talk-fest - Oppenheimer review by Alphaville

This tedious Christopher Nolan talkie about the life of the physicist is a real disappointment and a long haul. For three hours the confused plotting zips around all over his life and all over the place, never settling on one scene long enough for any drama to develop. Even worse, the endless meetings are mostly concerned with the audience-boring political implications of his early communist leanings. It doesn’t help that star Cillian Murphy has only one expression and half-whispers his lines in a monotone.

The hours drag by with scene after scene of assorted suits politicking in assorted corridors and boardrooms. After nearly two hours there’s some brief tension when the first atom bomb is tested (to an annoying score of what sounds like scraping violins), but it’s soon back to the politicking. By the end (if you last that long) it’s just words, words, words. Whatever happened to “show don’t tell”? The script was based on a book and would probably have made a better play if not for the huge cast of interchangeable characters. Such a disappointment given Nolan’s track record.

Powerful historical epic - Oppenheimer review by PD

This very lengthy but powerful and watchable film about the man who created the atomic bomb slices and dices chronology, psychodrama, scientific inquiry, political backstabbing, and history in roughly equal measure. Cillian Murphy gives a superb performance as Oppenheimer, making him fascinating and multi-layered: his “Oppie” is an elegant mandarin who’s also a bit snakelike — at once a cold prodigy and an ardent humanist, a Jewish outsider who becomes a consummate insider, and a man who oversees the invention of nuclear weapons without a shred of doubt or compunction, only to confront the world he created from behind a defensive shield of guilt that’s a lot less self-aware.

The film opens with a flash forward to the 1954 hearing of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission that ultimately resulted in Oppenheimer accused (among other things) of having hidden Communist ties, being stripped of his security clearance. This was the government’s way of silencing him, since in the postwar world he’d become something of a dove on the issue of nuclear weapons, a view that didn’t mesh with America’s Cold War stance of aggression. The film keeps returning to the hearing, weaving it deep into the fabric of its three-hour running time. As Oppenheimer defends himself in front of a committee of hanging judges, the film uses his anecdotes to flash back in time, and Nolan creates a hypnotic multi-tiered storytelling structure, using it to tease out the hidden continuities that shaped Oppenheimer’s life. We see how the Cold War really started before World War II was over — it was always there, shaping the paranoia of atom-bomb politics. We see that Oppenheimer the ruthless nuclear zealot and Oppenheimer the mystic idealist were one and the same. And we see that the race to complete the Manhattan Project, rooted in the makeshift creation of a small desert city that Oppenheimer presides over in Los Alamos, meant that the momentum of the nuclear age was already taking on a life of its own.

The film has a mesmerising first half, encompassing everything from Oppenheimer’s mysterious Princeton encounter with Albert Einstein to his far from utopian marriage to the alcoholic Kitty (played with some force by Emily Blunt). Just about everything we see is stunning in its accuracy, for this isn’t a film that traffics in composite characters or audience-friendly arcs; Nolan channels the grain of reality, the fervour and detail of what really happened. Meanwhile, the build-up to the creation of the first atomic bomb ticks with cosmic suspense, but the big bang itself, when it finally arrives, is something of an anti-climax as Nolan shows it impressionistically — the sound cutting out, images of what look like radioactive hellfire. Thus the terrifying awesomeness, the nightmare bigness of it all, does not come across, nor does it evoke the descriptions of witnesses who say that the blast was streaked with purple and grey and was many times brighter than the noonday sun. The Japanese experience is, perhaps inevitably, largely side-stepped, and although it's hinted at that bombing the defeated Japanese was less to save American lives and more designed to cow the Russians with a ruthless demonstration of the US’s nuclear mastery, the concentration on the effects of this on Oppenheimer seems rather morally incongruous given the forces unleashed. And once we're past that nuclear climax, the intensity rather subsides - we’re still at the A.E.C. hearing (after two hours), with an Oppenheimer who is now fighting the invention of the more powerful hydrogen bomb, as if it were some utterly different weapon from the one he created, and who is desperate to rein in the existence of nuclear weapons in general, but forgetting the key lesson of the revolution he was at the centre of: that human beings will always be at the mercy of what science makes possible.

Well acted, interesting story but disjointed and over rated. - Oppenheimer review by JD

I found the film very interesting, giving some food for thought where both the negative and postive aspects of how the US operates were demonstrated. Having taken a interest in geopolitics over the last few years, the film was indeed very interesting in this regard.

The acting is fantastic and the whole production is extremly well done. This is a film that has been polished to within an inch of its life and in this respect alone, its fantastic.

However.

The film is bloated. Bare in mind there is no science in this film. What tiny bit there is, is accompanied with simplistic explanation. There is also very little definition of the destruction these weapons cause. These subjects seem to of been brushed aside to focus on the people and events.

And there is the biggest flaw. Youll notice most people are keen to say they understood the film and thats because it jumps around between different times and storylines in a very fragmented way - Im not fussed to admit it, both me and my GF couldnt keep up with it all. It doesnt make you stupid, or invalidate your not-5 star rating. It just means you cant be bothered playing a memory puzzle while watching some entertainment and eating pizza.

A good film yes, but 5 stars, no. There are far, far better films out there.

Incredible biopic of visuals and tension but it's what you expect - Oppenheimer review by Tommy

This for me is what you expect from Chris Nolan and a biopic. It is an incredible film but kinda by the numbers as most biopics are. But because it's Nolan it is exceptional. He knows how to handle the process and drive a film. The visuals and tension Nolan gets from a story of physics, ethics and politics, which are all as relevant as you can get, but to the majority of people these subjects in a film could be boring. Never a chance for me but to a lot of people, probably is. No doubt though, a story that needed to be told. This was anticipated by most people who stormed to the cinemas, with Barbie's help of course but unfortunately this is mostly due to the high budget, it looks amazing and expensive so people who aren't passionate about films and stories get drawn to it.

Anyway i digress but my point is considering the lack of obvious action Nolan does great with getting the tension palpable. The long run time shouldn't put anyone off, the pace is both high - the score helping, but not rushed. The time is taken to get into Oppenheimer's life. It is not overly complicated - a good thing for a global audience and focus on other areas but that means some details may be left out, or some science and math needed be explained more. I like the science but this was about the man then the science, to be fair, so it's never going to be a physics lesson. This is about the ethical use of something that importantly develops technology but should it be used to end people's lives, possibly the world. We know it didn't but the fact that they thought it could've is a remarkable. The aftermath of the court hearing too is something unsurprising to the cynical / realists considering what Oppie had just done. I was hooked. This was all lead by his inner thoughts and opinions while we watch him struggle fighting the morale ambiguity. Cillian Murphy without doubt deserved the Oscar. He is as good as you'll get for this role. He doesn't over act despite some quirks, i can imagine other director/actor combos where it would be OTT. This is a story not many of us could ever be in, Oppenheimer was a genius but we are feeling with him. Nolan's style can be too down the middle, politically and emotionally. This isn't different but Murphy takes that over, his performance giving at times both raw and determined, subtle emotion.

This is a Nolan film, it has what you expect, the score, visuals, themes and story telling devices all there throughout. It goes back and fourth to the court room which is in black and white - something i am a sucker for. Can't help it, i love monochrome when used right ... yes in modern films too. This isn't a perfect film despite my 5 stars. Like i said it's kinda by the numbers, especially with out the flashbacks/forwards and the clever perfect use of camera work, editing, score etc. Broken down it is a high budget biopic by Hollywood so you know, the protagonist has a challenge/ambition and works hard to overcome it despite their flaws and conflict with others. But this is really, really good at it.

Long and a bit dull - Oppenheimer review by JR

The movie is too long and is 99% talking. The sound track tries to inject some excitement into it, but fundamentally it's a bit of a dull film. Well acted etc (of course) which is why the critics love it, but many people will struggle to get through the 3 hours I suspect.

Way overlong, talky courtroom drama with some Nuclear bombs... - Oppenheimer review by PV

I was massively disappointed in this - a great cast, largely British like the director - I actually find a lot of Christopher Nolan's films tedious and overlong too. I have never warmed to courtroom dramas and that is what this is (watch CHAPLIN instead to see McCarthyism, or The CRUCIBLE maybe as a metaphor).

Not sure how this compares to the 1980 TV miniseries BUT that is probably better - special effects, CGI, big budget and the rest only go so far.

Watch HIROSHIMA - DROPPING THE BOMB a BBC drama-documentary or other documentaries on it, WORLD AT WAR documentary classic, early 70s.

Interesting fact: the test bomb in New Mexico would not have worked without a tiny microscopic wire manufactured in the UK, in Wales, by the MOND factory (Mond was a family of Austrian Jews).

I was annoyed by some modern language used for scenes in 1920s/30s and the usual modern need to focus on women characters and relationships - but some stories are just more male, war stories and this. The lovelife stuff bored me.

2.5 stars rounded down.

Long Winded - Oppenheimer review by MT

I likely had unrealistic expectations about this film obviously a great performance by Cillian Murphy but retrospective films that jump about a bit are hard work IMO. To many screen shots of colliding atoms got a touch tedious.