Oppenheimer
Moronic Inferno

Review by Moronic Inferno Patron

Oppenheimer 2023

★★½

Watched 28 Jul 2023

Florence Pugh looks beautiful as a brunette. Her performance is also on point, as usual. So, it felt weirdly ironic rolling my eyes when she appeared naked (for a third time) in a hallucinated sex scene that takes place during a committee interrogation. Christopher Nolan may be a supremely talented director, but good lord... Erotic content is definitely not his forte. The execution of that lurid fantasy sequence is extremely hokey. 

Fortunately, Oppenheimer gets some other things right. President Harry Truman is portrayed accurately (by Gary Oldman) as a dimwitted but arrogant bumpkin. Alden Ehrenreich has the best wardrobe in the movie and nails reaction after reaction in a small role as a Senate aide. His performance might be my favorite of everybody in the cast, which amounts to about half of Hollywood. The always entertaining actor/director Macon Blair is sportingly cast as attorney Lloyd Garrison. Another talented actor/director Benny Safdie plays physicist Edward Teller. Jason Clarke hits the mark as douchebag right-wing judge Roger Robb. The supporting performances are easily the best part of this film.

Narratively, Oppenheimer is woefully unfocused. And yet, its central subtext concerning the moral dilemma of WMDs is somehow overplayed. Is killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians as a preemptive measure to prevent some hypothesized future conflict really a complicated ethical consideration? I’m gonna say no, it’s not, it’s just stupid and wrong. Yet the film treats that as an open question. Oppenheimer is okay as overstuffed summer blockbusters go, but you may be disappointed if you’re expecting a thought-provoking masterpiece. Don’t believe the hype.

Block or Report

Moronic Inferno liked these reviews

' ].join(''); if ( adsScript && adsScript === 'bandsintown' && adsPlatforms && ((window.isIOS && adsPlatforms.indexOf("iOS") >= 0) || (window.isAndroid && adsPlatforms.indexOf("Android") >= 0)) && adsLocations && adsMode && ( (adsMode === 'include' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) >= 0) || (adsMode === 'exclude' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) == -1) ) ) { var opts = { artist: "", song: "", adunit_id: 100005950, div_id: "cf_async_705e52a7-826c-440f-8dbe-87207b095c07" }; adUnit.id = opts.div_id; if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//srv.tunefindforfans.com/fruits/apricots.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)}; } else { adUnit.id = 'pw-705e52a7-826c-440f-8dbe-87207b095c07'; adUnit.className = 'pw-div -tile300x250 -alignleft -bottommargin'; adUnit.setAttribute('data-pw-' + (renderMobile ? 'mobi' : 'desk'), 'med_rect_btf'); if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => { adUnit.insertAdjacentHTML('afterend', kicker); window.ramp.que.push(function () { window.ramp.addTag('pw-705e52a7-826c-440f-8dbe-87207b095c07'); }); }, { once: true }); } } tag.remove(); })(document.getElementById('script-705e52a7-826c-440f-8dbe-87207b095c07'));
' ].join(''); if ( adsScript && adsScript === 'bandsintown' && adsPlatforms && ((window.isIOS && adsPlatforms.indexOf("iOS") >= 0) || (window.isAndroid && adsPlatforms.indexOf("Android") >= 0)) && adsLocations && adsMode && ( (adsMode === 'include' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) >= 0) || (adsMode === 'exclude' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) == -1) ) ) { var opts = { artist: "", song: "", adunit_id: 100005950, div_id: "cf_async_ed0846e4-f7a8-46af-94ba-2eecfe68f793" }; adUnit.id = opts.div_id; if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//srv.tunefindforfans.com/fruits/apricots.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)}; } else { adUnit.id = 'pw-ed0846e4-f7a8-46af-94ba-2eecfe68f793'; adUnit.className = 'pw-div'; adUnit.setAttribute('data-pw-' + (renderMobile ? 'mobi' : 'desk'), 'sky_btf'); if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => { adUnit.insertAdjacentHTML('afterend', kicker); window.ramp.que.push(function () { window.ramp.addTag('pw-ed0846e4-f7a8-46af-94ba-2eecfe68f793'); }); }, { once: true }); } } tag.remove(); })(document.getElementById('script-ed0846e4-f7a8-46af-94ba-2eecfe68f793'));