Sean O’Connor’s review published on Letterboxd:
Took a day trip to Indianapolis today to see Oppenheimer at one of 30 theaters in the world projecting it on IMAX 70mm film. Some thoughts:
As Christopher Nolan has said, IMAX really is the superior film format. Pristine picture and audio quality that truly immerses you in the story. As a result, key moments in Oppenheimer, especially in the second half, are among the most powerful I’ve ever seen in a cinema.
And yes, the aspect ratio changes for a good chunk of scenes (presumably because IMAX cameras, even with the new casing they have, are still too loud to put in a small room with actors talking, so those are still shot on 65mm), but that didn’t bother me. Or maybe I’m just used to it by now lol.
(I also wonder, as I notice that there are several outdoor dialogue scenes shot with IMAX, if Nolan would take advantage of that for whatever his next film is. What kind of a movie would allow him to shoot entirely outdoors and therefore entirely in IMAX? Hmm…)
As for the movie itself, it’s still the best one I’ve seen so far this year, and one of Nolan’s best (and, it feels weird to say this, one of his most accessible lol). It still peaks about two-thirds of the way through, and I wish it wasn’t so talky in the climax, but I get it, and Murphy and RDJ (and Blunt, in that one scene) are still brilliant.
(There are also a couple moments that prove to me that Nolan can make a slow-paced film, and he could do it well—he just chooses not to lol. But those are some of my favorite moments in here.)
I never travel two hours to see one movie, but in this format, from this filmmaker, and with a group of friends, I’m glad I had the privilege. But one of the best things about Oppenheimer is that it’s still great regardless of the format you see it in.
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