Oppenheimer
38DaysofNight

Review by 38DaysofNight Pro

Oppenheimer 2023

★★★½

Watched 22 Jul 2023

"We imagine a future, and our imaginings horrify us."


Like many of you, I have been ready and waiting for this movie for months...but now that I've seen it, I'm a little underwhelmed.

How is a story about one of the most critical moments in history, helmed by one of the most intense directors in Hollywood, underwhelming?

Is it the science?

Is it the unorthodox storytelling?

Doubtful...

Both are interesting enough and if you have even a fraction of knowledge about the subject matter, you probably won't fall asleep.

But shouldn't this movie be more...explosive?

That's a pun but seriously...

I found myself wondering who this movie was for and why it was made.

Like, I don't expect most moviegoers (ages 25-39) to even know who Oppenheimer was.

Hell, I'm a cranky 'old man' in his 40s and can only assume that most 25-year-olds think the nazis were the guys who wore the 'Make America great again' hats.

(*rimshot.)

Take my little sister, for instance...

She's 33 years old and told me she didn't know what was going on in Oppenheimer for 75% of its runtime.

That's why the whole 'Barbenheimer' marketing struck me as so odd.

I feel like there's a relatively small pocket of Boomers/Xers who will be able to fully appreciate this double feature.

🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️

Whatever the case, the movie itself is very well done, and its enormous stable of actors come with their A-game.

It can take a moment to get your bearings between the rapid-fire flashbacks that Nolan uses to tell the story, but once settled in, it becomes pretty enthralling.

As a history fanatic and amateur WWII scholar, I'm a little ashamed to say that the Manhattan Project never really interested me that much.

So I can't say how accurate Oppenheimer is, but I do know the broad strokes, and I'm satisfied this movie adheres to history.

Funnily enough, one of the high schools I went to was Enrico Fermi High, my grandfather worked at Sandia labs after the war and had a garage filled with nuclear equipment, and I've been to Los Alamos more times than I can count, but I've just never cared that much about the building of the bomb.

...probably because of the whole science thing. 🤮


In the end, Oppenheimer is a good movie and worth seeing. I just can't imagine this being one of Nolan's 'crown jewels' of cinematic achievement.

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