By The Big Magazine Staff
The movie Oppenheimer gets an overall rating of 2 stars 🌟 🌟 - It was pretty boring TBH, here's why!
On Sunday (in midst of Hurricane Hilary) we went to see Christopher Nolan's, Oppenheimer at the IPIC theater in Westwood. I figured if I was going to sit in a theater for almost three hours, it should be there. We fully bought into the "Barbenheimer" hype but I honestly wish I just waited for it to come to streaming.
The film was way too long and I got sick of watching Emily Blunt overact all her scenes as biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer. Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer is spectacular alongside Robert Downey, Jr. who plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and Matt Damon portrays General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project. They all probably deserve an Oscar nomination.
Florence Pugh did a decent job as psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, as well as Benny Safdie who plays theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano plays Robert Serber. Josh Hartnett also added sparkle to the scenes he was in as pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence.
Rami Malek delivers a standout performance with an impeccable court scene monologue before Congress, as scientist Dr. Hill. While Malek is mostly a quiet character in the film by the end/middle (have no idea it was so long) of the movie he offers a searing indictment of Strauss (Robert Downey's character), also Oppenheimer’s villain.
🙌 Outstanding Performances
🤫 Interesting facts on J. Robert Oppenheimer
🙄 The film is too damn long
🙄Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt overact their scenes
😂 Einstein (played by Tom Conti) in GAP sweats towards the end is hilarious. Wardrobe could have tried harder
Oppenheimer’s shows viewers two timelines: one follows the journey of Oppenheimer's goal to create the first atomic bomb called "The Super", the other following the events surrounding Lewis Strauss’s (Robert Downey, Jr.) congressional confirmation hearing.
In 1943, at the behest of Major General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), Oppenheimer became director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, the Manhattan Project’s New Mexico site for attempting to successfully build an atomic bomb. Oppenheimer, wants to develop the bomb for America before the Nazis do.
The cast also includes Dane DeHaan (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), Dylan Arnold (Halloween franchise), David Krumholtz (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story) and Matthew Modine (The Dark Knight Rises).
The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. The film is produced by Emma Thomas, Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan.
Despite my searing opinion of the film being boring, Oppenheimer has grossed over $717 million worldwide on a $100 million production budget, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2023.
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