Review of Oppenheimer (2023) by Calvincrack — 21 Jul 2023

It pains me to report that this movie was not good. Nolan made my favorite movie ever, Memento, and some of my other favorites as well. But somehow this one got away from him. He tried his darnedest to make this good by adding loud music and cutting all over the place between multiple time periods, but we're nevertheless left with a story where very few interesting things happen.

Maybe 5 interesting things in 3 hours, and you already know one of them. The other 4? I've already forgotten. Some of the acting is good here, including Cillian in the lead. He deserves a better movie for his commitment to the role.

A lot of actors feel miscast here, from the well known to the less well known. Downy? Miscast. Damon? Miscast. Both key supporting roles I was keenly aware were being played by those actors doing a schtick.

The best thing I can say about this film is that some of the cinematography is nice. Were you to pause it and just enjoy the scene on a visual level, it works. As for the script, the dialogue was quite poor apart from a few great lines.

Not enough subtlety. Characters will just say things to Oppenheimer like: "You *are* the great improvisor." or "You *are* the man who brought Quantum Physics to the United States." Uhhhhhhhh, ok.

He's "the great improvisor," I'm told. Because that's something a real person would say to their boss. I promise you, whoever's reading this, I'm not an angry internet troll, I'm not a bot, and this is not a stunt score.

Oppenheimer is a colossal misfire.