J. K.’s review published on Letterboxd:
Oppenheimer is sort of a mixed bag for me. There are undeniable moments of true mastery here, and the cast does a phenomenal job portraying their characters. The score also helps set the tone of the film, and the sound design in general is downright amazing at times. I also enjoyed the narrative. Well... As much as this story can be enjoyed...
However, I feel like the film suffers in several areas which held it back from being a great film for me. First of all the movie is just too damn long. There are so many sequences where we're just talking in circles, and when the dialogue is basically non-stop for 3 hours, it just felt like too much to me. I think there's a solid 30 minutes at least that could have been cut to make it more palatable, and we still would have had no problem understanding what was happening. I don't get why there is not an intermission in a movie this stretched out and dense with dialogue. Seems like that might have given the audience time to reflect on things and prepare themselves for the next half.
My biggest problem though was that editing was kind of awful... We saw the film in 70mm and there was a ridiculous amount of aspect ratio changes that kept taking me out of the film because it was switching back and forth. The cuts in general were also way too frequent, resulting in basically no shots longer than 3-4 seconds for large portions of the film. It was honestly driving me crazy because the cinematography itself was gorgeous, but it was never given any time to breathe. I'd be in awe of a shot just for it change 2 seconds later, and then again, and again... It was just not good in my opinion, and it really was taking me out of the film a lot of the time.
Still, the movie is good. I just think it could have been so much better with a few tweaks and proper editing. I know a lot of people don't seem to care about those things I've mentioned, but I guess it just didn't work for me as well as it did for them. I'll watch it again after it comes out of theaters, and see if I feel differently – but for now I do feel the film is a little overrated. I feel crazy saying it, but Barbie won the Barbenheimer battle in my eyes...
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