Oppenheimer is Barbie and he wants to party. 

Nolan really just can’t help telling a story in a nonlinear way can he? Anyway, a storm decided to pass over the theater I was in and cut the power to the whole building with 15 minutes left in the movie. Then it took 4 tries to get it working again, so that was a nice bonus 30 minutes. 

It starts right off the bat with the inter-cutting between current timeline and these different hearings but the importance of these hearings is not revealed until late in the movie, and it made it hard to be invested in those moments. 

The shock of creating an atomic weapon, and the guilt that you feel internally after the fact was an interesting thing to explore. I was curious to see how Nolan’s visual style would work on a historical biopic, but he does a great job telling this kind of story while maintaining his unique look. 

I felt like the film didn’t really ramp up to what I thought it was going to be until Matt Damon‘s character showed up and the trinity test sequences began toward the middle of the movie. I thought the beginning with his more academic life was interesting, but not riveting.

Speaking of riveting, the performances by everyone in this film were absolutely incredible. Obviously Cillian Murphy is great as Oppenheimer. But I was shocked how good Robert Downey Jr. is in here as well. Other performances from Matt Damon and Emily Blunt were great as well. 

Emily Blunt has a terrific scene in one of the hearing segments, but I think we could’ve used some more time fleshing out her relationship with a Oppenheimer to make the way she acted toward the end feel more natural to her character. 

It’s impressive how much they packed into 3 hours. This may be the most dense story of Christopher Nolan’s filmography. They went into details I didn’t think they would have time for but the pace is very quick. It moves right along.

The technical elements of this film are nothing short of top notch. The score is the best of the year by far and one of the best I’ve heard in a while and the cinematography makes what could be mundane and makes it so you don’t want to look away. 

I can see the final hour being mixed for some people because the movie definitely feels like it comes to a climax two hours into it and then the final hour is a lot of talking and hearings exploring the aftermath of the events with the atomic bomb. 

Overall I really enjoyed this movie. The fact that you have a 3 hour long movie that consists of mostly people in rooms talking, and it’s as immersive as it is, is impressive. Of course the visual spectacle with the explosion is amazing, but this film is much more than that. 

2023 Films Ranked: boxd.it/kmCtg