A little bit OT, but I'm sure this movie is potentially interesting to many here.
Herewith is my review just posted on Twitter:
The Oppenheimer REVIEW you maybe didn't expect:
(May have plot spoilers, kinda?)
I was SO looking forward to this, being a big nuclear history buff. And, well, I've got to say I’m disappointed and kinda annoyed.
Not in the visuals, they were great.
Not in the performances, they were great.
Not in the lack of ANY special effects, that was great (everything was done in camera, wow!).
But I’m disappointed because the trailer makes you expect something totally different. Or at least it did for me. I had to rewatch the trailer just now to confirm I wasn’t imagining that.
The trailer made me think the film was about, or at least would have a lot about the design and building of the bomb, building, development of and the work at Los Alamos and other locations, the effort put in the refinement, the physics etc etc. But it’s not there, there is almost nothing. You’ve sadly seen most of that stuff in the trailer already. You get the occasional very brief glimpse of the labs and trinity tower, and the gadget. but I was disappointed.
Examples: The pile test under the stadium for example gets maybe a minute, he walks in, geiger counters tick and that’s it.
Zero on the refinement of the fissile materials and the huge effort that went into that. They just represent it all as literally marbles in a glass jar.
Hardly anything on the Trinity tower, the setup, life at Los Alamos etc.
You get a couple of test shots on the explosive charges and that’s it.
There is almost nothing on the physics involved.
Hardly anything on the bombs dropped, but I didn’t expect that.
Basically nothing for technical minded people to get excited over, and certainly nothing for those like me with an interest in the history of nuclear development.
Yeah, I know, it’s in the name, Oppenheimer. This is almost entirely a character movie about Oppenheimer and how he got shafted after the war, all the commie stuff etc. But that’s not just after Trinty and all the early development, it’s woven throughout the entire film, all 3 hours of it.
Take a shot every time you hear the word communist and you’ll have to be removed from the theatre by ambulance.
With hindsight, it’s obvious if you look at the IMDB main character list. It’s all politicians etc and not scientists.
Basically the plot of the entire movie is based around a post-war investigation into Oppenheimer, and the movie is basically just flash-backs so to speak to tell the rest of the story.
The overall plot is basically all about Openheimer and Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr’s character).
If you want any focus on science and engineering characters this is NOT the movie for you. There is no real nitty gritty stuff, no people experimenting, testing, building etc.
And I mentioned annoying. Holy crap, almost the entire film has constant background music that drowns out the dialog. Dialog that should be important and focussed gets downed up.
And not just light background music, BLOODY LOUD, pulsating annoying crap.
Literally floor shaking stuff, I didn’t know my local cinema could go that low in frequency. And I’m, not talking the explosions, I’m talking about important dialog!
You just want to shout at the screen to shut the F up! And for the entire 3 hours.
It does go dead silent in a few places, but not where it needs to, and not even close to enough.
It’s like Nolan is trying to put you inside Oppenheimers head, and he’s got constant migraine headaches, so you have to experience that too.
And that investigation throughout the entire film gets annoying and confusing, cutting back and forth in time with various players, again, and again, and again, and again. Your head spins and you lose track of what timeline you are in.
This is NOT a structured historical flow film that I expected (maybe just hoping?) from the trailer.
Don't get me wrong, there are many great scenes in the film that I really enjoyed. And it treats the consequences of nuclear weapons and nucealr war very well. And I expected it to. A scene with Oppenheimer and Truman in the oval office is great.
The cinema was packed, and when I came out I heard many say the likes of “that was dumb”, “that’s not what I expected”, “I didn’t get it”, “weird” etc.
As I said, the performances are great, Cillian Murphy nails Oppenheimer, Matt Damon works as Groves. Robert Downey Jr is almost unrecognisable and great. But the scientists, well, you just don’t see much of them, and they are ultimately fairly inconsequential to the plot apart from giving testimony at the commie investigation.
The final end scene actually was really great, and tied the whole character and persecution of Oppenheimer plot nicely, and summed up nuclear war very poetically. Full marks for that, it was one of the highlights for me.
If you are after an entire character driven film maybe you’ll gush over this, and I wouldn’t argue.
But if you came for the science and engineering you’ll be bitterly disappointed.
I’m be struggling to even give it a passing grade of 5/10 here. What’s there is accurate and looks and feels great, but there is just so little of it.
Sorry, I’m, not going to gush over this one like 98% of critics and viewers are.
I can’t help but think it was a wasted opportunity to at least have SOME decent focus on the science and engineering of the whole thing.
They built the whole town and trinity tower etc and you hardly see any of it.
They had some of the major scientists involved and they don't give them the time or focus needed.
And with 3 hours run time they could have done way more here.
But maybe I’m just that oddball nuclear history buff that expected too much?
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