- Starring
- Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr.
- Director
- Christopher Nolan
- Rating
- R
- Genre
- Biography, Drama
- Release date
- July 21, 2023
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
On July 16, 1945, Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team forever changed the shape and tenor of war. On that day, mankind was given the tools to wipe itself from existence.
Oppenheimer
Taking us from J. Robert Oppenheimer’s days at Cambridge through his directorship of The Manhattan Project and his subsequent downfall, Christopher Nolan’s film is a tale of triumph and tragedy that depicts the rise and fall of the man who would become death.
Like Oliver Stone’s JFK, with Oppenheimer, Nolan has cast a bevy of familiar faces in unexpected roles. Also, as in JFK, each actor and actress gives a career performance. However, two stars shine brightest.
With deceptive stillness and quiet power wrapped in an innocuous shell, Cillian Murphy’s mesmerizing portrayal of the titular role is like watching the living embodiment of the Atomic Bomb. Not since Gloria Swanson has a performer been able to do more with a silent stare, and much like Joaquin Phoenix’s full-body performance in Joker, Murphy utterly inhabits Oppenheimer to his marrow.
Then there is Casey Affleck. Even after his Best Actor award for Manchester by The Sea, Affleck is still best known as Ben Affleck’s smaller, higher-voiced brother, and anyone who has not seen Manchester will likely be floored by his brief portrayal of Special Intelligence Officer Colonel Boris Pash. Affleck’s screen time can’t be more than five minutes. Still, in that time, he expertly channels the seething and barely controlled nigh psychotic energy of a zealot who is only restrained by his equally dogmatic adherence to military standards and protocol.
Equally as impressive as its performers are Oppenheimer’s cinematographer, Hoyte Van Hoytema, and composer, Ludwig Göransson. Managing to create synergistic magic, the two seamlessly work together to engage and enthrall audiences in a film that is an hour too long and suffers in large sections from some very disappointing dialogue delivered by some outstanding actors. Moreover, the film’s utter rejection of CGI allows for a visceral audience experience while the music gives motion and emotion to what would otherwise be long stretches of redundancy.
So, let’s talk about the screenplay. Clocking in at three hours, “economical” was likely not a word bandied about on set. The film’s first forty-seven minutes were largely unneeded, with the meaningful content being something that could have been more inventively parsed down to five minutes of dialogue and a shot of a degree. Nolan’s instinct to capture in full IMAX every scintilla of every experience that helped to shape Oppenheimer’s adult life often made for a disjointed narrative held together by superb performances and the aforementioned technical excellence.
Along these lines, the film hosts copious scenes in which Robert Downey Jr.’s Lewis Strauss awkwardly relays huge chunks of expositional dialogue to a Senate Aide played by Alden Ehrenreich. The scenes are designed to help audiences bridge the gap between the years of The Manhattan Project and Oppenheimer’s blacklisting, but they lack subtlety or grace.
Instead, each one plays very much like an inferior adaptation of a memoir in which a character is created only to ask unnatural-sounding questions to give another character an excuse to exposit copious amounts of information and motivation so that several years’ worth of events can be condensed into a single movie. Robert Downey’s talent notwithstanding, these scenes bring Oppenheimer to a screeching halt and completely emotionally sever the audience from the film.
With an unfocused narrative and a tendency to indulge some of Christopher Nolan’s more pretentious instincts, Oppenheimer is a challenging film to bond with emotionally. We suggest watching it in IMAX to get the most out of it. Barring that, wait until it’s streaming.
WOKE ELEMENTS
This section will likely be fairly divisive. There are a lot of comments floating around in cyber-space that Oppenheimer is a pro-communist/anti-American film. However, I would argue that it’s more accurate to say that it never fully commits to either of those propositions. Instead, it does a fairly good job of illustrating the reality that communism ran rampant throughout academia in those years (a trend that hasn’t slowed) and that America was deeply concerned about it. Furthermore, it does a reasonably decent job of limiting the negative aspects of Oppenheimer’s persecution to the people doing it rather than any particular institution, making it personal rather than political.
- Even though it’s never fully stated that Communism is good and America is evil, the first third of the narrative is often derailed by what subtly appears to be the filmmaker’s ambivalence toward the former.
- They made sure to shoehorn in a moment of misogyny.
James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
33 comments
Jason
July 25, 2023 at 2:39 am
Fantastic review, this site beats IMDB/Rotten tomatoes hands down! So glad i found out via GB NEWS about worth it or woke.
L
July 25, 2023 at 12:07 pm
I was looking forward to this film, until I found out about the needless sex/nudity scenes. That was really not needed.
James Carrick
July 25, 2023 at 1:32 pm
It really was not needed. It added nothing to the narrative.
ron desantis ran over my dog
July 26, 2023 at 4:47 pm
i found them very needed. florence pugh is hot, perhaps you are a gay man. get tested.
James Carrick
July 29, 2023 at 5:54 pm
Your mom never complained.
Rusty Shackleford
July 30, 2023 at 6:42 pm
Advantage: Carrick 🤣
Emerson
July 29, 2023 at 5:00 pm
+1. Such a disappointment – had to cancel tickets because of this. 🙁
Joan E, McLaughlin
July 25, 2023 at 1:11 pm
Ambivalent about watching this one. Definietely don’t want to spend the money required to see it in a theater. Maybe if it comes on one of my free channels. Would like to see the work of some of the actors but don’t like depressing movies and this sounds like one. Love your reviews.
Milford Cubicle
July 25, 2023 at 4:50 pm
This movie was the wokest trash ever, they just had to bring in a woman at the end to show up the anti communist men. They even addmit Oppenheimer was a left wing and even implies that the nuclear weapons were bad. This is woker than Barbie
James Carrick
July 25, 2023 at 5:27 pm
My understanding is that Kitty Oppenheimer’s security interview was fairly historically accurate.
Milford Cubicle
July 25, 2023 at 6:10 pm
It’s well known that ‘historians’ have a Liberal Marxist biased. They can claim this while movie is somehow accurate because it pushes THEIR agenda against the glory of the west
James Carrick
July 25, 2023 at 6:15 pm
That’s a fair point but without sources to the contrary…
Sarah F
December 11, 2023 at 9:57 pm
Or is the “glory of the west” a myth? Why are you so afraid of a woman who speaks out to a group of men? Had it been a man would you be less offended?
ANTI W
August 1, 2023 at 4:02 am
It doesn’t matter if they pulled lines from a historical transcript. The scene was clearly portrayed in a certain way. Every other person being interrogated by the guy was being stomped on, and he completely falls to shambles by some woman. Then cue in the approving head of bystanders …
James Carrick
August 1, 2023 at 9:50 am
I understand. However, everything that I’ve found indicates that not only is the dialogue fairly accurate but also the tone. It appears as though she was an ardent and aggressive defender of her husband and would behave that way in his defense since he was rather quiet about it.
reluctantdefender
March 10, 2024 at 5:14 am
Accurate sources are definitely hard to come by when the country has had a specific trajectory towards Communist sympathies. The ever constant corrosion has culminated into a Democrat Party that is entirely ready to do away with the constitution, while roughly half of the Republican Party is divided between Globalist sympathizers that lean more socialist than is healthy. The film is subtle Globalistic Propaganda wrapped in the glam of Hollywood.
The narrative at every turn slyly posits that Left-wing and Communist sympathies are, yes, not compatible with American values, or security.. but not necessarily wrong. In fact, the impression from any such character with communist proclivities is well meaning and kind hearted. It’s as if, such ideology, when harnessed by Democratic Socialism, would be the moral high ground; and that was effectively the secondary plot point of the entire film.
Perhaps Nolan was simply trying to capture the viewpoint of Oppenheimer himself, as he would have a strong left-wing worldview consistent with most secular Jews. Regardless, the movie comes off as an apologist argument that, since we now live in a world with atomic bombs, the U.S.S.R. is needed as a counter balance to keep America from using them again.
It’s a miracle that we didn’t go into thermal nuclear war with Russia, especially since they were trying there best to get nukes positioned in striking distance from Cuba. Of course, Wikipedia attempts to claim the Cuban-missile crises was a counter measure because of our placement of warheads in Turkey and Italy. Perhaps Wikipedia was used as the “historical accuracy” for the basis of the film 🤔
G
July 26, 2023 at 11:52 am
Good review
ron desantis ran over my dog
July 26, 2023 at 4:42 pm
this movie is very woke, they say “communism” at least 20 times, i’m beginning to believe that this website has been infiltrated by the bidenists, however florence pugh was very hot. don’t take your wife i give it 3 and a half stars.
Shabba
July 27, 2023 at 1:01 pm
Watched it, found you are right, the film is probably between half hour and an hour too long, but im a man who likes my moneys worth so its OK haha.
Tje film is worth seeing in cimea over streaming for the simple fact it has some superb sounds and some rather good cinematography.
I think it can be harf to create a woke film when the facts of the past are alreadtly set in stone. Same goes for films like elvis , ok admittedly you could tick box and be woke but any director worth his or her salt should aim for truth and facts of a film rather than stray away in ones on fantasy land of wokeness.
I think anyone wanting to watch a non woke film will enjoy this one
JC Admore
July 29, 2023 at 11:04 am
Even in this review, James opines about the acting, the cinematography and the sound (all the same meaningless things every Nolan paid shill opines about), but then admits the screenplay sucks, the narrative is a mess and the first hour is a waste of time.
Giving this movie a 65% for story is like giving a 65% for a ###### sandwich that smells and tastes like ######.
My wife and I went on the second night of release and the theater was packed. By the end, however, less than a dozen people remained. We watched couple after couple walk out of this film. And, those that remained pretty much spent their time playing on their phones.
This ranks as one of the most boring, pointless, god-awful films of my life. I’m struggling to think of any movie I’ve enjoyed less.
James Carrick
July 29, 2023 at 12:35 pm
We wrap dialogue into our story/plot rating which bumped it by at least 15pts. Say what you want about the man, but Nolan can write him some crisp dialogue.
John
August 1, 2023 at 11:07 am
This movie contains outright porn, that alone should be enough to label it woke. Then add in some communist sympathies and casual adultery, they literally brush one of his affairs off with a joke. This movie is cinematically pretty and has good actors, that’s the only thing it has going for it.
Gaz
August 7, 2023 at 8:25 am
Five seconds of boobs and some light thrusting is ‘outright porn’ now? Some people on here are more sensitive than the wokies
Liana
August 2, 2023 at 12:33 am
thanks for info
Kurt
August 5, 2023 at 12:01 pm
I appreciated your nuanced and detailed review of the woke elements. Your website provides a great service to people who are tired of condescending political narratives inserted into entertainment .
I am not surprised that this movie includes a shoehorned moment of misogyny. It seems that every movie or TV show has to include at least one and it seems the majority so this over and over.
I would like to suggest that you review more TV shows. I don’t get to a lot of movies anymore and there just isn’t any reviewer who gives as much detail as you do. I think most people watch more TV than movies. Would be interested in your thoughts on the latest season of Jack Ryan, FUBAR, and Only Murders in the Building among others.
John Doe
August 5, 2023 at 4:31 pm
Read the following review on Redstate on why Oppenheimer is leftist woke garbage that is a waste of three hours of your time and will give you a skewed version of history. After you have read the article please comment and update your review. Thank you.
https://redstate.com/jimthompson/2023/08/05/oppenheimer-spends-a-lot-of-time-big-picture-moralizing-and-soft-peddling-communists-n788192
nothingbutvapor
August 5, 2023 at 5:24 pm
First, I’m grateful James for your website. I appreciate your technical comments, wit, and of course your attention to the presence of non-artistic, manufactured leftist propaganda in what used to be one of the few past times that all Americans could enjoy together.
Having said that, you’re breaking my heart on this one. Nolan is my favorite modern Filmmaker and you have certainly held no punches, which again I appreciate. In addition to your comments, I am very disappointed in his depiction of explicit sexuality. Not that other cinematic masterpieces have been devoid of these elements, but Nolan has achieved what few other filmmakers have, namely exceptional filmmaking, stellar narrative, original material, and the lion’s share of the box office sales, repeatedly, and all with generally family friendly content. The addition of sexual content in this movie seems to cheapen his legacy, for me anyway. Regardless, I’m planning to watch this anyway.
James Carrick
August 5, 2023 at 5:27 pm
Sorry. I calls’em like I sees ’em. 😉
The worse part about the nudity is that it’s utterly gratuitous.
CoolGuy
December 21, 2023 at 8:27 pm
I was really looking forward to this movie. I was very disappointed when I realized that the movie wasn’t about science but about romanticizing communism.
Malachi
February 10, 2024 at 5:59 pm
Before I went to watch this film, I read the entire Wikipedia page on Oppenheimer so that I could appear smart and know what was going on. This was especially useful during the car ride home when we were trying to figure out what just happened. It is definitely a movie that is more enjoyable if you know some of the historical context when it comes to the Trinity Test and the security trials. Oppenheimer was very thought provoking and the final scene was the most powerful in the movie. There was some unnecessary sexual stuff that didn’t contribute to the plot and seemed to serve the only purpose of making the audience uncomfortable.
This movie is a long, fantastic ride, so make sure to bring some snacks and have a good sound system so you can feel the explosions.
Roon
February 17, 2024 at 9:44 pm
“They made sure to shoehorn in a moment of misogyny.” Bruh what?
Beauty Fashion
March 21, 2024 at 5:06 am
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Ktuff_morning
August 7, 2024 at 11:58 am
Fat Man & Little Boy was better. I love me some Florence Pugh though.