Review of: “Oppenheimer"
Mild Spoilers, if any…
Oppenheimer (2023)
Writers: Christopher Nolan, Kai Bird, Martin Sherwin
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Stars: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, etc…
IMDB Rating: 8.5/10 Stars
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 91%
Runtime: 3 hours
I will try to keep this short when compared to the three hour runtime of this film.
Robert Oppenheimer's claim to fame is being the brains behind the atomic bomb, the game-changer of World War II. The Manhattan Project's scientific director, overseeing the birth of the first nuclear weapons, dropped like fiery gifts on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Post-war, Oppenheimer does a little pivot. Suddenly, he's all about international control of nuclear power and giving the cold shoulder to the development of the hydrogen bomb. The Cold War and McCarthy era were not very impressed. Accusations of communist sympathies started flying around, and in 1954, he got his security clearance revoked. Political drama aside, Oppenheimer managed to keep his scientific street credit. He kept contributing to theoretical physics and education until his death on February 18, 1967. Legacy-wise, it's a mixed bag. Scientific genius? Check. Moral and ethical debates about nukes? Double-check. Oppenheimer, the man who played with atoms and left us all questioning the consequences. Nice one, Oppie. Nice one. For he is the harbinger of destructive energies, becoming Death, the destroyer of worlds.
The Film “Oppenheimer” is both powerful and scary. I saw the film as a metaphor for today's culture and what could happen if we continue this path of how we think about ideology, sociology, politics, and religion, in general...
Most of the story centers around how the US government saw Oppenheimer’s very loose communist connections after World War II. The story's been told so many times it's kind of weird how history paints Oppenheimer, the atomic age at the end of World War II, specifically, around those years afterwards were “McCarthyism” became a really big thing and this country had to blame people to put itself in the position it is in now with how the “Military Industrial Complex” and the “Government” appear as two distinct different authorities, not as one, working together. Almost immediately after the bomb was created the United States was trying to consolidate its power and control over the scientific community and the public...
The film itself is fine. It’s really long, really slow, told in a very abstract and artsy sort of way. The film was promoted as if it needed to be seen in IMAX format and I will argue that it absolutely was not good enough or big enough to warrant that headline. As good as the look of the film is, it isn’t some big, special effects oriented flick. The effects, while good, are not the best nuclear bomb explosions in a film. Actually, I would probably label them as sub-par, but they work for the film. Will this film give one any real insight on the man, his politics and beliefs? I do not think so. It’s just an interesting way to tell the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer... Nothing more… Nolan does a good job here, but it isn’t his best work and I feel like in a year people are going to forget this film was even made. You’d have to be a really big Chris Nolan fan to love this film. However, it was a good watch, just do not expect to have your mind blown.
For me seeing the lovely and talented Florence Pugh, topless and near naked in her scenes in the film were done very tastefully and it was hard to NOT look at her. She is just so stunning and I love her body but also dig her art. She always does great work and to see her in this light just solidifies that for me. Would love to see her in more horror though. Man does she really kickass in “Midsommar.”
So, yeah, love “Oppenheimer” or don’t, it’s still a good watch, but if you watch it with today’s culture in mind, to me, it was scary to have people like this in control of weapons like this. However, history does show we have made good decisions with nuclear weapons. We have not dropped a bomb or fired a missile with the intent to destroy since the days of World War II.
That has to count for something…
"The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country." "The history of science is rich in instances where scientific insight has been the impetus for profound social change." ~J. Robert Oppenheimer...