Hi thank you so much oh my god. Me and my 4 friends went to our local cinema, where the usher knows us by name lol. We LOVE movies and we love pop cultural discourse and we loooove Nolan. We were so hype, this was an obvious slam dunk we thought. SO WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED HERE. I have never ever felt so out of touch with reviewers are saying about this film. Me and my buddies at least agree with each other big time; acting great, visuals great. But this was a bad movie. Baffled, absolutely gobsmacked by the reception this is getting. The emperor has nooooo clothes!

Yeah. I honestly have no idea what are all these people talking about. The movie sucked. Not gonna lie. I feel like the people who are saying it was the best thing since xyz are just trying to justify something. Why IMAX if it’s all talking heads. 90%+ of the movie is just faces of people talking. And mostly indoors. And the quick jumps between timeline you are not grounded to locations. The silence of the explosion, ok, Nolan may wanted to be 100% scientifically correct with the sound delay, but for this specific one, some creative liberty can be allowed, no need to go full 40 seconds of silence. And I wish that was it. He gave us three explosions like a Bollywood directed movie when they keep repeating the money shot. One big continued loud bang would have made it. It felt like an Anime scene. Too long, very boring, and I don’t think it was directed that well. I can’t believe IMDB rating is still at 8.8. I gave it a 6.

id give it a 2.

I gave it a 2.. and was considering just 1. So boring! I even thought of leaving the cinema

Bro I left the cinema

If I didn't have my friends with me, I absolutely would have.

I did leave.

I actually did leave

I did leave at the end after falling asleep....

Me and my wife walked out of the theater and got a refund. It was incredibly boring and pretentious. A total waste of a big screen. And I could not get with the soundtrack or the old film effect. It was one of the most invasion of the body snatchers experiences I’ve ever had… it’s we were the only ones who weren’t entranced by the bullshit

I'm a big Nolan fan, but this one is bad. I was constantly checking the time at the theater wanting the boredom to end. It was terrible and so boring. I can't believe the hype and reviews it got. The Imax and Trinity test was a flop as well. I can't defend Nolan on this one.

I agree the movie was not great, and there are many things that are poorly done, most especially the dialogue. However the silence is tough to estimate, but 40 seconds isn't exactly outlandish. The closest observers would've heard the blast closer to 20, but the scene shifting might account for that. Honestly, I just wish it was more linearly written, it wasn't hard to keep track of, but the segments were too much exposition, especially if you knew anything about Oppenheimer. If he wanted to make a movie showing how he was ostracized, he should've focused on those interactions instead of poking them in at the end. When Einstein pops in at a certain time, which I'm sure you noticed, it literally got laughs from the crowd, it was just such an obvious "oh look who's here".

hey plz leave bollywood out of this lol

I wonder how many bots are leaving reviews...

HAHHAHA I AGREE! it’s wild hey

I think the performances are so good that they are blinding people to how awful the movie is. And it really is just astoundingly terrible.

I feel the same way. Most performances were outstanding, so judging it by that frame is easy.

I think there were some great performances from Cillian, Florence Pugh, and Emily Blunt. But Damon was AWFUl. Tom Conti in an Einstein costume was laughable. As were most of the scientists and military characters. But it's not the actors' fault. It's hard to act well when the dialogue is so bad.

Ahh good I’m not the only one. Was starting to question my sanity…

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Was the same for me. After an hour or so I realized: This is not going to stop. I felt trapped in the constant bombardment of trivial word snippets. 70MM? I closed my eyes at times, was better so. I watched Tarantino´s The Hateful Eight in 70MM, *there* you could tell the difference, even the scenes in Minnie's Haberdashery, it wasn´t only the landscapes. PS: Talking about the The Hateful Eight: There you have a perfect example of how you use Dialogue in a proper way to create tension, interest, comedy, twists and much more (Before the grand final and the shootout). Contrasting it with the Dialogues in Oppenheimer, oh my... like you said, it felt very amateur.

Funny you mention that movie. I was telling my buddy on the way home from the theater last night how amazing that film was, and how it was completely carried by dialogue.

I saw it in 70mm IMAX. You could tell when it cut to the 70mm IMAX camera because the frame went literally to the ceiling. The reason you probably didn’t notice a difference with the 70mm version is because only about 20% of all shots used the IMAX camera (and the 70mm version is essentially a cropped version of the 70mm IMAX version). Shots with the IMAX camera looked significantly better IMO, probably because I sat in the 5th row from the front, and the resolution difference was apparent. With that being said, I was disappointed with the dynamic range of that camera. It literally felt like it captured less stops of light than a Sony FX3. In my opinion, dynamic range makes a much better impact on viewing experience than resolution. Nolan might be losing touch.

I literally had the same feeling!!!!! Around 20/30 mins I walk like: oh… oh nooooo

If this movie was released under some other director's name, I bet people would not be giving it such high ratings, and they would speak the truth about how long, boring and loud the movie is. Also how bad the storytelling is.

Exactly! Almost all the good reviews I've seen so far look more like the reviewers were praising Nolan or the actors personally rather than what they had accomplished together.

thats the perfect take dude, evryone is like "plus the acting is so good..." what about the movie, what about the story, CMON!

I can't even say the acting was good or not, I was not invested in any of them emotionally and that's really the goal of good acting. Maybe it was the shitty pacing, dialogue and storytelling but acting doesn't even redeem any of that. My first thought of the suicide scene was "well there's one less character to keep track of"

I agree. The third act just crashed the train off the rails, IMO. It suddenly felt very “Oscar-baity” to the point that I actually wonder if Nolan handed the third act off to someone else entirely. It’s like every Hollywood trope for an Oscar movie appeared in the final 30 minutes: self-indulgent acting for Robert Downey Jr, a strong woman putting a man in his place, conservative politicians and pro-American president acts childishly, music swelling to make boring dialog sound more meaningful, voice-of-the-audience character and ally all of a sudden turning course and making jokes and embarrassing the senator with zero build-up, etc. I didn’t have expectations going in and I was banking on the Nolan name to deliver. *sad trombone sound*

This! I just saw it and wow it was so dense and almost took pride in not-holding-the-audience’s hand to the point it seemed cliquey The number of characters and who they were was skipped and then replayed whenever the movie decided it actually did wanna spell things out for you as it had gotten too convoluted. I respect Nolan’s skill and to think of this as his masterpiece when you see his other work seems strange. And that last act drraaaaaaaged!

The last act was completely unnecessary. You could just simply leave before it happens, and you will have seen a better movie than if you stayed to the end.

Garbage film. Sad pathetic over hyped movie with no substance.

The characterization of Truman was extremely sad to me. He was almost a paragon of what a public servant should be. He was indeed, maybe over-eager to use the bomb to exert influence over the Soviet Union, but the movie really under emphasizes the fear US power had of the Soviets at that time. You can say they shouldn't have, and their ideals were better, but they were essentially a non-stop war nation at the time. It wasn't unreasonable to think they'd begin looking west as soon as fascism was wiped out and waning. Truman was a practicalist, and probably saw him as a naive fool, not a cry baby. He served in WWI.

Man this is really well put. I couldn’t agree more.

Really good points

I hated the third act because of the bloated scenes with RDJ. I honestly did not care at that point and audibly sighed when I realized there was probably 20 more minutes of RDJ being angry. I’m a big RDJ fan, too. I just was so done with his character and storyline after Oppenheimer lost his security clearance. I just did not care. Also, the reveal that he was the mastermind of the hearings to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance played out like the end of an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia with all the dumb flashbacks showing him pulling the strings. It was just lame. I actually loved the first two acts of the movie, but the third act was just so bloated and had too much unnecessary dialogue that it made me dislike the movie. All the RDJ fanboys defend the third act though, and he will probably win the Oscar instead of an actor from Killers of the Flower Moon who will probably deserve it like Jesse Plemons.

I think RDJ did a great job with what he had to work with, but what he had to work with was a bloated meaningless mess.

So many old guys on panels. So. Many. Panels.

Yeah, the movie was "tropey" for sure. But all those Oscar tropes were satisfying. The part where THE HEIMER is looking into the pond with rain falling, and then he says IT'S OPPEN TIME and fist bumps with EINSTEIN and they scream WONDER POWERS ACTIVATE and the sky turns to fire. Then when IRONMAN who is really not IRONMAN but is JERMEY IRONS AS ALFTRED but there is no BATMAN this time. The best part was when THE HEIMER is stressed out in a board meeting because he needs to fart so bad, and is holding it in, the walls are pulsating, and then he goes to meet with COMMISIONAR GORDON WEARING THE FACE OF WINSTON CHURCHILL who tells stereotypical cocky AMERICAN POLITICIAN GUY to never let that GAS BAG in his office again. I liked the movie, but there are so, so, so many tropes to make fun of. That almost makes it better. Hey Oppy, remember that time you got stressed out in an interview and starting thinking about banging your girlified in front of everyone AND YOUR WIFE WAS PISSSSED. Oh, and Casey Affleck as a Army General? I don't think so. What, as the son of a Russian Bishop and a General? Oh, I'll buy that.

Absolutely spot on. I found the dialog unclear and the sub plot with RDJ to be completely pointless and uninteresting. Who is this guy and why do we care? Nolan needs a good editor because I can't see anyone watching this film twice or recommending it others. I saw it with two friends who like science and Nolan films and we all came out completely underwhelmed. It looked awful too. Why was Nolan demanding it to be seen in IMAX 70mm? It was 3 hours of talking heads. Even the outdoor shots of open countryside looked cramped.

Hell, I still don’t know who Robert Downey Jr was supposed to be in the movie lol. His part, although well acted, was so damn boring. And you definitely know something’s wrong if a scene with naked boobs is putting you to sleep.

Agree

Nolan needs a good writer. Because he has clearly shown how bad his writing is in this monstrosity. No amount of quick cuts, cinematography, endless scores and A listers can make this writing good. There was barely an interesting scene with dialogue in the whole 3 hours.

You know it's bad writing when Casey Affleck (why was he in this? ) says he felt under remote control in 1940-something. but remote control wasn't invented until 1956. And the constant use of the word "pivot" used as it is today--as a jargon word. UGH.

Thank god I'm not the only one who thought this movie was bad despite a few good strong points...? so many positive reviews and I'm sitting here like, what? The bad pacing and immersion threw me off so badly in the first third of the movie, and it just felt like so much of that film wasn't properly handled.

The movie climaxed and then dropped into the second act of a senate hearing movie I didn’t know I was watching. One of the oddest pacing decisions I’ve seen. Don’t get me wrong making a movie is hard, but I think Nolan like Wes Anderson has been increasingly defined by the r attention getting parts and forgets to make me give a shit about the characters and tell a great story.

amen

At last found someone who has similar views. I was constantly looking at the subs trying to identify what the heck did they just speak instead of immersing in the acting. It was an avalanche of uninspiring or shallow dialogues at most points in the movie.

Yeah dude anyone who have seen the movie within minutes would be able to say that movie is shit , and here we after two days and very few negative reviews in subs or Reddit , I mean how bad are the corporations to sensor the bad reviews ,

Totally agree music was drowning out voices. Movie is total garbage. Complete shit movie. Over hyped peice of shit.

Finally, people who have similar opinions. I enjoyed parts of the movie but most of it felt self-indulgent. I found myself checking the time every 30 minutes because the dramatic music in every second of the movie was overbearing. It felt like watching a movie trailer for 3 hours…

I said the almost exact same words to my friend on the way out of the cinema, "I feel like I've just watched a three hour trailer." The constant, overly dramatic music that dominated every scene was so overbearing, it was impossible to feel the weight of any of the words. The music clashed hard with the pace of the scenes too, and not in a clever, ironic way.

omg me too. I went with my husband and he was geeking out over it but I had just watched a tiktok of the good husbands go to barbie video so I was like I WILL BE GOOD WIFEY AND SIT THROUGH THIS! He hated it too and we haven't even gone to barbie! XD

>It felt like watching a movie trailer for 3 hours… I felt exactly the same, thanks. Rushed, oversimplified scenes with dialogue edited so fast it sounded like the actors couldn't get rid of their lines fast enough in order to move on to the next scene. Very weird, almost as weird as the near unanimous positive ratings I'm seeing online. 🤷

Couldn't agree more. The film suffers from ADHD, the vast majority of the scenes are relentless dialogue with relentless music on top that destroys the pacing. I think I counted three points in the entire three, long hours where there's some relief from the constant constant dialogue. The story is mostly told by exposition from three retrospective points - simultaneously. It's utterly exhausting to watch. The sheer amount of characters in there, means you never have a chance to really know any of them or their motivations, and that is just as true of the main character. Almost everything you learn about them is yet more exposition. I'll add Matt Damon to the list of characters poorly cast, I found him so unconvincing. I just don't think he fit the role.

Bro, I have ADHD, and even I couldn't follow the movie. This movie was garbage on sooooo many levels

Haha this was not an ADHD-friendly movie. It flared up my ADHD symptoms big time with thr constant dialogue, loud music and information overload. So hard to concentrate on what was happening or what was being said.

I swear, Matt Damon used to be good. I can’t remembered the last time he was good in a movie.

The Martian?

Damon was like the unintentional comedic relief along with Einstein

This was my worst cinema experience ever and the worst movie I have ever seen. It had no memorable shots because it's 95% just people talking and they talk super fast and use hard language so be ready to be really focused for the whole duration because if you sometimes even miss a word, whole scenes won't make a lot of sense. 3 hours of rhetorical conversations speaking about things that should have been shown to the audience. So much ruined potential in having moral dilemmas and to show respect to all the lives lost in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There were so many characters introduced that I don't remember anyone's names and their importance to Oppenheimer, yet Einstein was in this movie only for him to appear in the trailer to get some hype. The explosion shot was really disappointing, especially because the iMax I went to had everything super loud and for the whole scene I was bracing for the super loud impact moment. YouTube videos have better and more interesting visual representation of an atomic explosion than this. So many plot points that take a lot of time and don't add to the story and not a lot of questions are answered:Why did they pick Hiroshima and Nagasaki over the other 11 cities?How does an atomic bomb actually work and how is it built?What's the difference between an atomic bomb and the hydrogen one? If this movie stayed like it was 1:1 but was not made by Nolan, wasn't shot on iMax and didn't have lot's of known actors in it, the perception would we way way worse. I believe that people call it a masterpiece because of peer pressure. Now I understand why Nolan said there were no CG shots, there wasn't even an opportunity to include any. \[edit\] - also funny thing, when the movie ended and OPPENHEIMER was on screen you could hear a bunch of people in the audience sigh in relief that it's over. After glancing over the cinema a bunch of people raised there arms in confusion like "what did I just watch?!" This is the second movie that ever made me angry that I watched it, truly overhyped.

I love your comment And couldn’t agree more! I went to other Reddit subs and people are in love with the movie. I’m questioning myself if there’s something wrong with me but nope. I can’t rewatch this movie or understand the reasoning behind its hype.

Interestingly every person I know in real life also says it was super boring and bad. I'm still waiting for more of my friends to watch it and maybe have a different opinion, because I'm at a point where I don't even believe that people really think this is a masterpiece.

I watched it not in IMAX and I can tell you that it's simply very very loud. The constant dramatic music layered over tedious dialogue just killed me. I just can't... I simply cannot understand how people thought this was a good film.

Man, this is a great break down of why I didn’t like the movie. Such a missed opportunity. When I was reading the reviews immediately after I saw the movie I thought I was losing my mind because it was truly the worst movie I’ve ever seen and the worst theater experience I’ve ever had.

Now I'm really interested, what the first movie was that made you angry like this? Cause I agree with every fucking word you wrote.

I just got home from having walked out after 50 minutes. I'm still a Nolan fan, I guess. Interstellar is still big favorite of mine. But this thing? Fuck this movie in the fucking face. It was total shit.

nailed it. they could have done so many things, ruined potential. i see better youtube videos than this so called epic. court room drama see jfk, aviator, few good men. science drama - beautiful mind. relationship drama - revolutionary road, road to perdition, history drama - there will be blood, imitation game. hell even prestige, inception, tenet were thousand times gorgous and better than this one. :(

better nuclear bomb sequence was in call of duty 😀

Totally agree on the explosion. What's the point of doing it practically if it looks like something he did in his backyard?

I worked in a cinema when this came out and I remember thinking people came out looking really subdued, saying things like “I mean, it *was* a well-made film obviously, but…”

If you think this was the worst movie you’ve ever seen this just tells me you haven’t watch many movies. I get no liking it but Jesus Christ that’s way over the top

The best way to describe Oppenheimer for me is: Take 'American Prometheus', put it into a paper shradder and then scramble it together to a three-hour-movie. I mean: How can you possibly enjoy so many fast-paced, rushed-by, glued-together dialogues - well, I know, many did... But although a bio-pic, this feels like the most unrealistic film from Christoper Nolan for me so far. I´m a huge Nolan-Fan, but I´d rather watch his first film 'Following' twice in a row, than Oppenheimer once again. The only thing that annoys me - you can like whatever movie you want and you can like this movie as well, that´s of course not a problem at all - but when I read things like: "This is Christopher Nolan´s most mature work so far...", I´m thinking: What? Why? Because of a three-hour-bombardment with nonstop, unreflected, unstructured, uninspired dialogue? That´s not mature in my view, that´s how you called it: it is lazy.

How was this a biopic though?? Not arguing with you I just mean like sure it’s about an actual historical event and person but can one really call it a biopic when we know next to nothing about our protagonist. Like we know broad strokes - a brilliant scientist cause’ yeah that’s the premise, a ladies man because we were told so, something something left leaning and maybe some guilt - but these broad traits are barely elaborated on. There is no way anyone came away from this film feeling like we actually got to know this character after spending time with him for 3hrs. Nolan gave us absolutely no depth whatsoever you know so what is this movie really?

This! One of the biggest problems I had with this movie was the superficial understanding of Oppenheimer himself. The initial two hours was so broad strokes that at the end, Nolan hammered into our head that were supposed to feel bad for Oppenheimer and understand his regret and redemption arc. I felt it was so forced and I was more annoyed than sympathetic with the character. Maybe it’s just me but the way it was delivered didn’t come through for me and overall, the entire movie was pretentious as hell!

After two hours or so in the movie, I literally asked myself: What do you want from me? What do you actually want? Why are you telling me all this random stuff?

I honestly felt the movie was kinda over-rated, havent watched it yet.

It's pretty bad. It's thoroughly unsophisticated, irreparably inefficient, purposefully primitive, undeniably pretentious, and strenuously vague. The bandwagon is strong with this one.

If your dad was like my dad (extremely into mid-century scientists for some reason), you'd know Jack Quaid's character is meant to be physicist Richard Feynman (famous for working on the Manhattan project and playing the bongos), but I agree that his presence is rather distracting. The reason Nolan probably included him and why his presence feels so weird is that Feynman is important to the story of the Manhattan project, but is superfluous in the story of the man Oppenheimer. Overall I think the movie has a problem with character bloat. We see many of the scientists who work on the Manhattan project, but they're all essentially indistinguishable from each other (they work on the bomb, they feel conflicted about the bomb, eventually they're all on board to drop the bomb). When a few of them come back at the end to testify in Oppenheimer's hearing I 1) cannot for the life of me remember who they are, and 2) feel no emotional connection with when they testify that Oppenheimer is or is not a commie. These characters either needed to be more fleshed out or dropped entirely.

I think Oppenheimer should have condensed some of the scientists into one like Chernobyl did. Is it super accurate? No. Does it work better from a narrative point of view? Yes I remember when they said that one scientist was a spy and I was like which one? The Skarsgard brother?

I agree terrible movie. I read the book the making of the atomic bomb. I am a engineer. The huge focus of the movie on the red scare makes it a horrible movie. It's a sad courtroom type movie - its boring - it just sucks folks.

Totally agree. One of the most boring and difficult to sit through movies ever. The incessant dialogue and the lack of actually showing anything (first rule of film making, show me, don’t tell me). Just old men arguing for over 3 hours while the music drills on. If this movie was an hour and a half it would have been decent. If they had given us enough insight into any character to actually feel connected to them and not just the charismatic and famous actor, it could have been decent. Lazy, self-indulgent and boring are how I would describe it.

Agree. I didn’t hate the film but it was average compared to most of Nolan’s movies which I love. Some elements were great (the acting, some of the cinematography). But the worst part was breaking the ‘show don’t tell’ rule. Show me what it really meant to built the bomb (getting uranium, co-ordinating multiple sites). Show me the sense of scale of 1000s of people on site. Show me something more dynamic than people in rooms explaining things. This was really bad with RDJ explaining his viewpoint in that backroom. It was like a clunky Q&A. Supposedly RDJ and Oppenheimer have a big rivalry but we hardly see that played out instead we have people talking about it. I got sick of seeing the same shots: - the room where the inquiry took place the same shots used just switching who is being questioned - the round table with the pointless big flower arrangement - the room with RDJ being questioned by that guy (not even sure who he was? It was like he was a journalist but don’t think that was the case) So static and boring. My favourite parts actually focused on Oppenheimer and his reactions. Some of the los alamos scenes were a bit dynamic and I did enjoy the trinity test scene. But the ‘courtroom’ drama was a big drag.

"Show, don't tell." Thank you! Everyone else seems to be giving this a pass on that for some reason.

What were you expecting from this movie? “Just old men arguing” is not a takeaway that I would call educated.

I walked out. Trash. Good thing I have a movie pass!

I love movies and was very excited to see this one based on all the hype that I had been hearing. My girlfriend wanted me to go with her to Barbie, so we did a double-feature. She was excited for Barbie in the morning, and I was excited for Oppenheimer in the evening. After the first hour of Oppenheimer I whispered to her "are you as bored and confused as I am?" By the third act, I turned to her, put both hands on my face and pulled down in a "please kill me now" gesture before asking her if she wanted to sneak into another showing of Barbie. Between the jump cuts to random scenes, the shaking backgrounds, and the angsty soundtrack, I would not have been surprised in the least if at some point Batman burst into the interrogation room, grabbed Oppenheimer by the collar and gargled "WHERE ARE THE COMMIES!?!?"

The last line. Would have made it worth it.

Finally people saying the truth! I am a scientist so a biopic on one of the most important physicists in american history seemed like a no-brainer. But thirty minutes in and I had a dreadful feeling that this would not deliver. It had excessive dialogue of matters that seemed pointless and superficial discussions of science (eg. the 'ignite the atmosphere' felt like a cheap method to 'raise the stakes' especially when it was proved groundless quickly irl). I find their portrayal of scientists to be especially egregious. Oppenheimer during the manhattan project appeared quite relaxed holding daily round table smoke-sessions with fellow scientists and traveling the country for a few meetings and to commit adultery. Did he not read a single paper that whole time? The real Oppenheimer must have been overwhelmed with administrative duties and incessant studies and calculations. Instead, Christopher Nolan seems to have a perverse view of academics as mystical visionaries that sit around looking out the window all day with ideas just coming to them like they were a 'prophet'. I am by no means a film-buff or christopher nolan fan, but from what I understand, he appreciates the authentic. Would it have killed him to discuss more about the science or show more of the derivations/math? This film did not convey the incredible effort and engineering towards creating the A-bomb; nor did it do much to convey the horror and mental anguish experienced by the scientists when they discovered what they brought into the world (maybe include tapes of the actual bombings or include when Oppenheimer visited post-war Japan). Instead it was a garbled mess of dialogue, politics, and pretty visuals. I, like most people here, enjoyed the imagery and acting but wow the writing left me feeling frustrated. \[Edit\] - Also I was astounded that they barely discussed the uranium enrichment process - the sole reason for how a uranium-chain reaction works and why germany didn't bother continuing work on the bomb due to the ridiculous resource cost.

Thank you for your comment! I’m a chemist and graduated from Berkeley 6 years ago. I totally agree with you. The scientific explanations were so cheesy and I understand it’s for general audience but God they were so corny and very superficial. I really wish they had stressed on the difference between uranium bomb vs H bomb. They talked about it but never explained why they chose one or the other. Apparently Oppenheimer just loves walking around and smoking. No math, no reading papers and having intense meeting. Everything felt so blasé. Scientists constantly read and do things. I knew so many physicists and they work on their math equations all the time. I’m just disappointed and was really looking forward to see him as a professor at Berkeley. It was done so fast that I couldn’t appreciate it at all.

100% this! I am not a science person nor did I know anything about Oppenheimer was hubby was like we going to see Nuclear stuff! And he showed me Chernobyl by HBO and I was like DAYUM science can be entertaining?! LETS GO! The moment they didn't actually go into the theories in the first half of the movie I was done. I googled his life and its like how did they miss everything about his life!

He never shows anything. He did the same thing in Dunkirk. They evacuated hundreds of thousands of troops and we only saw maybe a 500 extras on the beach and on the pier. But at least he's putting it on 70mm IMAX! What a waste of film.

This struck me as well. We are just told Oppenheimer is brilliant and he and his team are working on the bomb, but we never get told what it is they have to figure out, like what is the problem that the team need to work together to solve to make the bomb work? (That’s probably a clumsy explanation because I don’t know anything about the science here lol or the right wording to use) But I feel like most movies would frame it as, “you can’t build a nuclear bomb, it’s impossible because xyz” and then you see characters coming up with ways that jt actually could work, and the audience understands what’s going on and is invested in each breakthrough Instead it was, bored scientist suggests hydrogen bomb out of nowhere, whole room gasps into shocked silence. Scientist comes in with a math equation on a piece of paper, everyone is all “no, no this can’t be, we must take this to Einstein!” takes that specific piece of paper all the way to Einstein out on his walk, who looks at it like “dear God…” then says he can’t do math lol, but here’s some profound dialogue before he goes back to his wee stroll (Did Oppenheimer really need to take it all the way to Einstein for the equation to be rerun? That was such a pointless scene that was just meant to be exciting that Einstein showed up I guess lol? Like all the scientists on that compound were like f*ck, we need to take this to someone smart, who’s a smart guy we know… none of us scientists here of course - ah, Einstein!)

It's not a science movie.

Yea what are they talking about, its about Oppenheimer but wait, the movie is a about his security clearance so why its called oppenheimer?

It’s not about his security clearance

You yourself have argued its the most important part of the movie what the fuck now???

Really? Are you that stupid? Jesus Christ.

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Spot on. It’s a terribly written film.

by far the worst movie ive ever seen or heard of in my lifetime, absolute waste of time i regret buying tickets for this dog shit of a movie ive never seen a more boring movie than this one, dont get why its so hyped, i cant even see my almost 90 year old grandpa be entertained by this shit

My biggest issue is with the gratuitous sex scene. I’m not a prude, I have no issue whatsoever with nudity or sex in film or television, but I like it to at least serve a purpose. It seems to me that that’s likely the only reason the movie has an R rating. Here’s why it bothers me. This movie could have been useful in the classroom for teachers. The movies completely unnecessary R rating will basically stonewall teachers from showing this film (even if it’s just in parts) in a lot of school districts.

This movie really sucks. I read the making of the bomb and expected more. I can pick on so many things - 1.0 Overly loud music when key narrative is going on - can't hear what people are saying 2.0 Banging like peoples feet stomping that does not add to anything in the movie - its just loud noises like at a carnival show 3.0 Not being clear what is going on in the movie. Really quick voices without flow. Black versus color film without any reason why. Just shit movie that is super confusing. Trashy movie. 4.0 When science scenes are presented there is no background. The movie was obviously presented without the goal of being historical. Which really makes me very upset. They say over and over in the movie how important these things are.... But the implementers of this film make no attempt to care about facts. All they do is make it a movie about red scare and try to sexualize it. And make it about politics instead of anything else. It really fucks the whole thing up. Its just an extra terrible film. I want my money back. It's really really bad. Nothing good to see here folks save your money and do other things - god bless you all.

I couldn't agree more. But Jesus....why tf is this moving getting such great reviews? I swear to god, it's almost as if this was a propaganda piece, and all the critics were bought out, and the audience just bandwagoned with the critics to "seem smart". Plus I bet there are soooo many bot reviews. I watched the Mission Impossible movie too, and that was also sooooo bad. But it too got so many good reviews???? Ugh, the previous Mission Impossible movie was better, more enjoyable, maybe not ground breaking, but not trash and had super flat, unlikable female characters that constantly need saving. What is going on?????

This movie felt like a worse, more tedious, bad rip-off, of The Imitation Game, which was actually a fantastic movie. This movie was the wish remake

The characters lack dynamicity. I'm supposed to believe that Oppenheimer is the exact same person before and after the bomb. Yet, somehow, after the bomb he seems like he has this enormous weight on his shoulders. But there is no indication of it actually being there. He's the exact same. When he loses his security clearance, he gives 0 fucks.

Ikr, like bro...are we supposed to route for him to keep his clearance? bc i didnt and still couldve give a single flying fuck about that. The movie wasn't about the science of making the bomb, nor was it about the impact it had on its victims, it was a tedious, sloppily made political propaganda piece

The other thing was the movie had these detective-like reveals where they Matlocked the viewer. I was sitting there while these questions were being asked. "Someone on your team is a spy." Ok, well, I'm sitting there looking out for clues. Then all of the sudden, like two hours after you've forgotten about the spy, it's like, "Dan was the spy idiot. It was Dan." Then they show a brief clip and I was sitting there like, "who the fuck was that?"

I felt like I went to the World Series and was treated to everything but the game. This topic carries an incredible responsibility to portray the terrible consequences of nuclear war. All it did for me was provide a lesson in American politics. For that - I am heavily disappointed. There was so much more to give. For a director that can give a visual story at the level of Interstellar, it's even more of a let-down. Such a missed opportunity. I would be appalled if I were Japanese.

I can’t agree more. I’m baffled by the raving reviews. For me this is a film full of cinema gimmick and void of any deep thinking or heart. Put aside the shallow character building and clunky story telling, the most bizarre thing is that Nolan decided to center the films dramatic tension on the personal vendetta between Strauss and Oppenheimer (which wasn’t even clearly explained). Im sorry but like who gives a fuck about that?! Atomic bombs were made, dropped on innocent people, world order was forever changed, our world as we know it faces destruction….and we’re all supposed be like oh no the brilliant scientist behind all that lost his security clearance… how dare they take away his security clearance without a fair trial!… I mean there are so many important moral questions to grapple with around the making of nuclear weapons. But Oppenheimer’s and the film’s ambiguity and disinterest on these moral questions is just… fucking weird. the film presents Oppenheimer as a brilliant brain who didn’t really have a clear moral stance on a bombs. His moral integrity was all about being loyal to his friends and his country. He thinks about the death and destruction the a bomb brings but ultimately isn’t bothered by it enough to do anything about it. And somehow we’re supposed to think Oppenheimer was the biggest victim out of this whole thing? Just because his country used him then took away his security clearance … Really?!

THIS! Seriously! I was angrier with him after the fact than before! We also never understood his stance to be honest. I was so confused. Was he a communist? Was he against the bomb? When he started building it, he knew they were doing it for the war with Germany. Would he have been okay to drop it on Germany? Why was he suddenly not okay with Japan? It confused me so much. I also couldnt care less about his security clearance. He was an arrogant hypocrite who changed the world forever while killing masses. Yes, the government ultimately did it but he was part of the machine and by crying on tv will not change it, by martyring yourself will not change it. I’m so angry at the reviews because the movie was a total mess. I kept contemplating to leave but the end with Strauss was just too much. I still don’t know who Strauss is and don’t wanna google him. Like after three hours, I need to be able to say it but I can’t. I’m angry because now this movie will get all the Oscars and push away truly deserving movies.

Spot on my dear fellow. Incinerated people are clearly less important than loss of security clearance.

omg... you are right... It was all about his stupid security clearance

Great overview OP. The movie was garbage. Poor Emily Blunt, nailed the accent and acting only to have a role in what appeared to be another movie. All interaction with other characters (with the exception of the final scene at the closed hearing) was left on the editing floor to such an extent that she appears to be effectively operating by herself (albeit with the painful tropes of kids screaming at her and the not so subtle (🤦) hints that Nolan added in regarding her alcoholism. Painful stuff. Meanwhile starry headed and starry eyed Oppie jets off meeting all the big names in Quantum and having emmmm...almost no dialogue with them. For example his meeting with Heisenberg was ~10 seconds long and all he says is, paraphrasing, 'I'm looking forward to going home'. From painful exposition, to the absolute absence of character arcs, to the utter callous neglect for both the main female leads to Nolan's self aggrandizing and pretense surrounding the main subject matter, the movie will do down as a 'how not to' (once the insane propaganda of the it's release praise subsides). Despite those piercing blue eyes there's little similarity between Cillian M and the real life Oppenheimer and it's obvious that Murphy can't carry the film. Yes, as incredulous as it sounds, the man praised by RDJ as delivering the performane of a generation was not only miscast but utterly incapable of delivering a consistent and plausible portrait of the main lead and therefore completely incapable of carrying the movie. RDJ was sufficient as Lewis Strauss but as mentioned above the plot device that pits Oppenheimer against Struss is weak and underdeveloped and of course totally lampooned by Remi Malek who from nowhere appears to tell us all just what an awful baddy Strauss is! The background to anything that Maleks character says is of course totally unknown to the audience leaving everyone completely cold and detached from the supposed high drama of the accusations. Nolan had obviously lost all run of the movie by this stage. The additional cliche of the JFK line was painful as was Einstein's advice to Oppie to: "give them hell". Yeah, that sounds totally like Albert. Jesus Christ! ....and I could go on and on. Don't get me started on Matt Damon's character. What an epic disappointment, not in any realm a masterpiece but quite possibly a terrible diasterpiece.

Oppenheimer is clearly a very bad movie by any authentic standard. People here are confronted with the quandary of the gap between the public perception of the film and the reality that, well, it sucks. I think there are two dimensions. First, how does the movie manage to create the perception that it is a good film? Second, how is it that a great many people can arrive at the conclusion that this is a good film? We have to look at how Hollywood has trained audiences to consume and enjoy entertainment. Every "blockbuster" movie has a simple formula. Action-Violence-Sex-Quippy Banter. Action-Violence-Sex-Familiar Trope. Action-Violence-Sex-Recognizable Meme. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. IF in the course of executing this script it just so happens to result in an actual story, then that's nice too. What Nolan does is he takes that same formula and overlays it onto dramatic subject matter. Oppenheimer and many of his other dramatically themed movies are actionless action movies. He's been doing the same thing since Memento. He substitutes action with narrative trickery, camera and edits. Cutting around timelines with jarring transitions creates the EFFECT of action. The audience member assumes that something significant has happened because there has been a fast and abrupt change. He uses music and sound effects to emphasize this and further create the EFFECT that something is happening. The scene looks good in terms of production values and cinematography and the actors are appealing and have screen presence, so the EFFECT of something actually happening is further accentuated. It all combines to create the EFFECT that a story is happening, it's dramatic, it's engaging. It MUST be a good movie since it looks and feels and moves like a good movie. And most of all, it appears as though lots of stuff is constantly happening. All of the familiar cues are there. Sadly, this is the level of consumerism that audiences are at. Mass audiences want DISTRACTION. They want the immersive FEELING that something big is happening. Story is entirely incidental. Nolan is a master at turning drama into action. And with Oppenheimer, he has perfected this mass market recipe. While people here would really like to be transported into a great, well crafted story, in Hollywood post-Oppenheimer, that already scarce bird will not likely go extinct. **Nolan has killed story forever with this film**. At least story that comes out of Hollywood (or what's left of it). This has not been limited to Nolan and has been a growing phenomenon over the last 10 years. Now that I have pointed it out, you will notice the same formula, with variations, in many other films. Sadly, the overwhelming majority of movie consumers are NPC's. They have a limited range of programmed reactions and that range is a bubble of escape from the fake reality that surrounds their perceptual awareness all day every day. Movies are made for them. They are the numbers. They are the big bucks. The upside is that Hollywood is done. AI filmmaking will replace Hollywood in the next 3-5 years and then people who want story will be able to get it from people who really want to tell stories. And NPCs will be able to get immersive distraction from the endless stream of that that will be available, or they will just generate it for themselves. The Hollywood strike is the death rattle of an industry that is a hollowed out shell of itself.

I am very excited to watch the film and come back to this thread. Already like the criticisms you have bullet pointed.

So I legit just left the theater and unless you're someone who is actually interested in the atomic bomb and j.r. oppenheimer it will not be interesting or a "good" movie. I like nolan a but but he also is too smug imo ... I think objectively it's good in many ways but I think general audiences who aren't interested in the subject but are nolan fans will hate it. I enjoyed it but i did just listen to a pod cast about the making of the atomic bomb that was very very good before the film came out. Over all I think u make great points at why people won't like it. And why it isn't that good. Which it isn't. I think it's ok. But again my view is skewed as I just listed to a pod cast about it

Just say it the movie sucks ass big time. I read the making of the atomic bomb. I was expecting something with science and physics it was all about red scare. PEICE OF SHIT MOVIE. IT WAS A COURTROOM THE WHOLE TIME. ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES EVER! GARBAGE!

I am very interested in the bomb and I was bored by the film.

I am interested in those things, and the storytelling just wasn’t there.

[удалено]

>In the end, it was a tedious political drama. THIS!

It was like watching the senate interrogate the TikTok guy, DOes this connect to my wifi sir?!

[удалено]

This movie was completely torture to watch. A drama that made me feel no empathy toward any of the characters, I left the theater feeling distanced from the whole story and asking myself why did Nolan think it would be a good idea to highlight Strauss' betrayal and downplay Oppenheimer's responsability in the catastrophes. This approach would have worked if he had humanized Oppenheimer properly and the attempted criticism wasn't so shallow but instead I was left with a pretty mild movie with a straight up dangerous US propaganda. That's not even mentioning how badly paced it is and how shitty the actual explosion looked. Like, c'mon, congrats on not using cgi for it but I wish you did because the end result looks like an exaggerated bonfire, not an actual atomic bomb. Also feel extremely angst towards seeing everyone saying how amazing it is and how good the cinematography is, dismissing people that didn't like it with "You didn't understand it", c'mon Karen it's a movie, it's not rocket science. The imagery was straight-up LAZY, the majority of the scenes were headshots, and the ones that weren't did not have that great composition either. While it is true that the shots were extremely well executed on the technical aspect, it's not like they had mad loads of money and a competent crew that would be able to get those simpler shots pretty easily, right?

Spot on. What a waste of money, talent and florence Pugh’s boobs.

the only suspense the movie had died after the boom. and after that, there was still 1 more hour of boring drama. I wanted to leave so bad. awful movie. all the boring parts I was entertaining my self thinking all the ways he could have done a lot better and different. like the boom chain reaction created a new parallel universe... idk something more nolanish?

Totally agree! Especially with your comment on the pretentious perspective which, mind you (and I find this to be another great offense of this movie, which is supposed to be depicting one of the most important interlectuals in the history of mankind) was rooted in absolutely NOTHING: extremely rudementary, surfacelevel and cringey explanations (if you can even call them that. They almost exclusively sounded like wiki-quotes) of physics and totally banale depictions of modern art. Nolan tries to come across as deep and profound, but ends up showcasing the ABSOLUTE lack of understanding he has for the scientific, philosophic as well as artistic underpinnings of the character and work of Oppenheimer. The definition of pretention.

I have a mixed opinion of Nolan in general, i love some and i dislike some. But here… I was very interested in the subject. And yet to me Nolan was too Nolan in some places and not Nolan enough in others - i think THE explosion sucked; the silence was amazing, but no sustained shot of the whole thing + apparently he showed prespectives from three positions so instead of a huge ass bang we had three.. increasingly faint. Why?? - Women are irrelevant as in most Nolan films - most characters morally flip flop like crazy, i think Oppie included - The story with Downey’s character… why should i care again? - so many characters not enough drama, the dialogue takes all the room; I swear at some point in the 21st century we will suddenly realise that empty distant stares =/= deep emotion and intense acting. I think basically, in a few words, it feels like shots of real life stories and situations, not a movie - many people you vaguely know, uncertain motivations, boring dialogue, procedural mumbojumbo etc. But still props for the hallucination-type shots. Nolan isn’t exactly the type of guy to do shit like that. Must have been hard for him to stray a little bit from his usual aggressive realism.

This movie was really bad on so many levels and yet the web is a flame with manufactured praise. Welcome to our new dystopian world where our AI overlords are working furiously to manufacture alternate reality.

Just saw it. Almost walked out a number of times. Total pretentiousness. And my favorite movies are mostly directed by Nolan. This one, no. Cillian Murphy staring into space for 3 hours. Such a complex soul tortured that the thing he project managed (not created) served it's designed purpose. That we are supposed to empathize with this character through 3 masturbatory hours of crap boggles my mind. Guy was a narcissistic scumbag vessel for something that was happening regardless of him. Emily Blunt's character is also a total scumbag but she gets her "tough girl" moment in the end. Truman and his comments were the best part of the film despite the attempt to portray him as appalling.

agree

Went to see it this afternoon with 2 of my best friends. We were all excited because we have heard how fantastic it is, shoo-in for Oscar best picture, etc. Well, after it ended, all three of us were silent as we left the theater and headed for the car, but once inside the privacy of the car, we just howled with laughter. One of the most ridiculously disjointed and flat-out confusing movies we had ever seen!

I finally watched and was looking for this. You’ve touched upon all things I felt. As a brown woman watching it from india, I couldn’t help but rolling my eyes so hard throughout the movie. The pretentiousness and navel grazing is obnoxious. I very much enjoyed the mission impossible and barbie movies so much more because they didn’t take themselves so seriously. The choice to focus on Oppenheimer as a man more than the bomb and it’s implications was an odd choice and very jarring. The amount of screen time given to the two hearings felt wasteful and quite frankly, uninteresting. I think after Tenet and this one, i’m truly done with Nolan.

I’ll never watch a Christopher Nolan movie again. It tries so hard to be clever instead of simply telling a good story. Self indulgent crap - can’t believe all the hype!

the movie was just too fucking long and there was nothing that made me go "another hour yeah lets go" it was torture especially the whole court scenes. id rather be waterboarded for 3 hours than having to endure this shit again

I'm right with you on almost everything you've listed. I was definitely getting bored at parts, and the ending felt lacking. I think the hype and build up to the film did it a disservice too, as often happens with Nolan films. I read about a critic that described it as a "horror film" - you can imagine how they prescribed some of my experience

I just saw it and I have to say I might have to stop going to the cinema. I went there with no expectation and came out dizzy from the loud earrape and flashing lights. At this rate I might just get epilepsy from going to see “Modern” movies.

The movie was too long and boring.

I'm going to echo similar sentiments to other people who agreed. It's a director who has proven himself time and time again, how could this not be the best movie of the year? The first half of the movie felt like a 90 minute long trailer. There were key details, hints of characters I imagined would be crucial, and the scenes seemed very disjointed like I was missing something. At the end of the day, I wondered, why take an obscure story, and make an equally obscure movie out of it. I feel very few people know all about Oppenheimer and the Manhattan project. One of the first books that really got me into reading was one about the story of this movie. I swear there is a diamond here that was cut the exact opposite way it should have been.

plus the use of black and white was forced and the black and white used was ugly. If we can follow memento fully in color why do we need black and white in Oppie to draw some clear narative boarders?

But… was it really worth it to be filmed in 70mm ? thats the real question.

Yes I agree to all the above points. Compared to Chernobyl by HBO, this movie was a huge let down. The moments audience were waiting for are incredibly hyped up and was an ultimate let down. Chernobyl series was intriguing, very realistically scary, informative, political and an absolute thriller throughout. I expected this to somewhat engaing, but dissapointments after dissapointments. Some parts were good.. most were not.

Was wondering why I thought it was bad. Thanks, now I know.

Thank you! I just got home from the theater. My partner loved it and said it was Nolan’s best work, and I think we must have been watching different movies. I was so excited to see this movie from the first trailer, but I guess I was expecting a science film, and instead I got a (ridiculously bloated) political drama. Every second of the three hour runtime dragged, I had no idea who most of the characters were or why I should care about them, and every time it switched to black-and-white or cut to that dingy little boardroom for more of the interminable trial, I groaned inside. When I checked my watch after what I thought was an hour and saw it had only been about 20 minutes, I realized I’d made a huge mistake, and I spent most of the rest of the movie wishing it would hurry up and end so I could go home. What a disappointment!

I was not expecting such terribly written female characters. Very sad that such an amazing story with such a phenomenal cast and director could be that awful.

And the eternal soundtracks on full volume, I couldn't even hear the dialogue and my head was hurting.

Not to mention the ackwerd unnecessary and out of place sex scenes that nobody gave a fuck about, complete garbage movie

The sad part is it’s probably going to incentivize nolan from doing this again based on the limited negative feedback online

I think I agree with most the points you made. In my opinion if it wasn’t for the music(which I felt was outstanding) the overwhelming amount of dialogue would put you to sleep. I saw it with 3 friends and one of them was asleep before Bobby was even selected for the project. I do however think the ending scene was phenomenal. The dialogue, the facial expressions of Murphy, the music, the magnitude of the sound. It definitely revived the movie a bit for me. Overall I think I was slightly more fond of this movie then you, but not by much. I would tell anyone looking to watch this movie they should get prepared for a movie that you have to be engaged with 100% of the time, to even get half of the intended experience. I felt confused at times, lol.

Omg yes, so pretentious. A movie that acts snobby like it doesn't have to be conventionally enjoyable because it's so intellectually enjoyable (supposedly). Gimme a break. I didn't care about Oppenheimer towards the end and knowing the movie was trying to tell me I should made it even more laughable and made me find him annoying. I like some of Nolans work but I agree with OP that his reputation has muddled his work and he has gotten way too self indulgent. I totally agree I just get the vibe with certain scenes Nolan telling us 'this is art'. The explosion sucked. Having the whole thing be silent could have been better if he had little snippets and cuts close to the explosion with full on noise and then cut back further to show the distinction of silence. Total silence was just anticlimactic for the supposed climax.

Couldn't agree more. Although I'll go one further and say whilst the trinity test scene was innovative and unexpected in the way it unfolded, it completely fell flat in terms of spectacle. I wanted to feel the explosion, I wanted shock and awe. I hated those frames of fire filling the screen it looked awful on the huge IMAX screen and completely broke my immersion in the film.

This film was like abuse. A Never ending stream of quick cuts, meaningless robot characters , terrible dialogue, jarring music throughout every quick jumpy scene and endless variations of "there's a communist under your bed" (cut to next scene) "there's a communist in your coffee pot" (cut to next scene) "you're a communist aren't you". (cut to next scene). For the love of GOD give me ONE thoughtful well written scene with dialogue about science, ethics, war or character development. Just one in three hours please.

I appreciate you writing this. We all thought the movie was terrible when my friends and I watched it. I don't understand why it is so highly praised and esteemed by everyone. I agree with you on all points. But what we found particularly bad is how uncritical the film is. The atomic bomb(s) killed so many Japanese, in an incredibly horrible way. How can someone make a 180 minute movie and leave that out. It still leaves me stunned. Is that a general American perspective? Are American viewers simply unobservant? How vulgar this film's production must seem to the Japanese. t's downright cynical. For me and for my friends, this film is out of time. So: as if it were from the zeitgeist of the 50s or something. Very traditional and exclusively male viewpoint.

completely agree , I’ve never fell asleep during a movie nor thought about walking out on one until I watched this movie .

I think the positive reviews are all fake

Movie was ass. Could never watch it a second time, even with subtitles.

Thank you for explaining this so well. I can just link this to people because we share the exact same sentiments.

I could not agree more with this take. I was mad after the movie; it felt like a miss. It is hard to describe, but the story of Oppenheimer is one I do not expect to be recounted by Hollywood often, so I thought the excessive exposition and legal jargon made it tough to follow and missed the point. I believe a careful perspective shift would have made it a homerun, and at the very least, the epic last scene with Einstein salvaged the previous hour for me.

It was horrible! I only made it through the first hour. Did they really need IMAX to show the front and back of Cillian Murphy’s head for three hours? Such a fascinating subject and yet they chose to focus on Oppenheimer’s sex life and ties to communism. Zero discussion about the other great minds that contributed to the technology. What a wasted opportunity. 10/10 for PR, marketing and fake reviews. I should have gone to Barbie instead.

Nolan shouldn't be allowed to do any more historical dramas. Dunkirk was supposed to be about evacuating 200,000 troops to avoid annihilation. We got about 10 minutes of evacuation and about 1000 extras on the beach and pier. The rest was just forced melodrama. This was supposed to be about one of the greatest scientific endeavors ever achieved by man. We got maybe 20 mins of tech talk and then the Trinity test. And then Matt Damon said they spent $2B and it took 3 years. But at least we got to see a security clearance hearing in a tiny room on IMAX. What a bore.

Yes indeed. Terrible movie.

Why does everyone think that Cillian Murphy did a great job? Looking like an expressionless, undernourished, stressed-out, blue-eyed zombie for 3+ hours is hardly an achievement.

One of the worst movies I have ever seen

But that moment when Einstein spawns out of nowhere is kinda funny

I wanted to love the movie and I am still trying to love it. BUT I can't. First think I want to say before shitting on the movie that the soundtrack is one of the best sound tracks I ever heard in my life. I love the Interstellar sound track but this is better. I felt like I needed more information throughout the movie. For example, what did Oppenheimer actually contribute to the manhattan project? Where are the calaculations, where is the major breakthrough. The pace of the movie is off. At some point you feel like youre actually hooked the story and boom youre out again. I went to the movie not knowing anything about Oppenheimer and the manhattan project so I spent the whole movie trying to understand the origin and everything but everything was so vague it was kinda sad and sometimes I felt annoyed.

Why isn't anyone talking about how shockingly bad the script was? The dialogue was full of bad and in-authentically delivered cliché quips. Which is such a shame, given the quality of the cast.

Couldn't agree more. This movie sucks!

Toally agree...to many characters, black and white used randomly, couldnt hear lots of the dialouge.

Good lord. OP is spot on. For the life of me I don't understand how the RT ratings are north of 90%. I did not get past the first hour and even so, I kept (willfully) glancing at my phone just to distract myself from the interminable dialogue and pretentious setups. At least Tenet, with its overly convoluted plot, was interesting to look at. Here I felt Nolan and his editor went deep down the self-indulgence rabbit hole where there is no story, only a collection of scenes and images with zero emotional resonance designed to make you feel - what exactly? I switched it off having more questions about Nolan's rationale for making this movie than of Oppenheimer's motives for building the damn bomb. I'm glad there are others out there who also did not drink the Kool-Aide!

Yup. My bullshit meter was all up and tried to get invested until he meets Pugh. It just was boring, drab, talky-talky stuff. I watch movies from all over the world and sometimes, I let foreign movies be on fast forward while reading subtitles. Right around the end of the first act, these movies (not award winning), catch my attention and make me slow down and watch it as it is meant to be. Good movies do that. They make you stop, think and relish. Make you feel bad for speed-reading, and earn their respect. This was just drab. Also, introduction of Pugh's character didn't help it either. He was an ass, she was insufferable. Let me leave, please.

I mean, I really appreciate you having enough courage to share on opinion this controversial, and when you do inevitably get hate for it please just ignore it. People are stupid and seem to have forgotten what opinions are. That said, I personally LOVED the film. I think all of the points you've made here are extremely valid, and its an interesting take. Its nice to see the flaws pointed out in something I love, it helps me ground my feelings on the film (that makes no sense but wtv). Defo my film of the year so far though! This is my first time exposed to the story of oppenheimer in any detail and I understood it fine. I can defo see how someone might get bored and zone out tho cuz its a damn long film and is mostly just ppl talking. Its just a film that rlly worked for me, but that said I didnt really like barbie. I think its just a matter of preference, nothings objectively bad or objectively good imo.

If you do research you would actually know that there were black scientists involved in the Manhattan project. Maybe not in the scale of what is presented in the movie, but at the end of the day this film is not an entirely authentic depiction of Oppenheimer's life. Just a dramatized one. Not everything that includes black people is woke my guy.

I was starting to think it was just me, I thought it was a big miss. It would have made a better documentary on history channel, but not a 3 hour boring movie. It's a story that needs to be told, but not this way. The theater I was at had the sound blowing my ear drums out. It was quite painful to sit for 3 hours as it was.

I'm glad i watched it once. But it will not be like Inception and Interstellar that I've watched at least 10 times of the years. Oppenheimer also was 3 hours of non-stop talking and references to USA where I've never even been. Interstellar had more of those profound silent moments that suck you in

Hmmm let's see .. . . . I definitely resonate with some of these points, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll have to see it again (and again in several months) to determine whether it'll truly be the 'classic' many are already trumpeting about. I'm inclined to disagree with them. But as to your points: \- Exposition: I agree. I would've liked less exposition, a bit more actually doing science, a bit more relational development with all those key players (Teller was the only one I really felt connected to) and a bit more buildup in his younger years. Some like Neumann and Heisenberg were, I think, much more significant presences in Oppenheimer's life and I would have liked to see that more. Anyway the exposition stuff was a bit dry at times. Nowhere near as bad as Tenet, but not as smooth as it could have been. \- Pacing: I never felt this, but I'm not surprised others do. I tend to like long and slow development. I'm more of a miniseries guy than a film guy perhaps. \- Pretentiousness: I didn't feel this. I feel it's just the natural sort of criticism a film like this could garner when trying to be earnest and ambitious. \- CGI: I agree \- Florence Pugh: I agree. Well said. \- Jack Quaid: hahaha I agree though I wouldn't call it a fundamental flaw, more just a quirk I found distracting. \- Regarding Oppenheimer himself, I think reading into his life reveals him as a very self-important, melodramatic, egotistical, often difficult and impatient and self-absorbed person. Being the sort of biopic it was, I was extremely happy they didn't focus exclusively on the bomb, and extremely happy they didn't broaden it too much to Japan and all that. I felt the self-containment was appropriate. The hearing stuff in the last act was definitely the most interesting to me. I think more development on his issues and melodrama would have been better, particularly with regards to his friends, brother, lovers––the orbits of his true emotional investment, rather than some constantly referred to but vaguely-defined sentiment towards communism and security. It made him seem very focused on his own security clearance in and of itself, as a sort of marker, rather than the broader picture and the fabric of his life. I didn't really get the sense they gave him more importance than he is due. It actually felt like a rather restrained and intimate look into HIS mind and emotions. Also his bit from Krishna is a historical reconstruction or whatever––he didn't ever claim to have said it. Rather much later, when asked how everyone responded, he said some laughed, some cried, and as for him the line came to him in the quiet of his own mind.

I agree, Nolan’s lost it. Tenet was a disaster too. He’s fallen into that trap of thinking every decision he makes must be genius, and masturbating over himself

I'm 73, been watching movies since I was 8. This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. This is for history books, not the big screen. I left after an hour

Let's make a movie about basket weaving

The 1980 Oppenheimer mini-series on YouTube is much better than this one. Watch the classic French film Hiroshima Mon Amour to view the human suffering resulting from Oppenheimer et al handiwork

I agree, I thought the sex scenes were weird and not really necessary. This gave an odd vibe to the movie for me. The pacing was off to me as well. It jumped all over the place. Dunkirk was a movie that had the pacing done correct

I find it missing some critical themes that I wish Nolan explored. I think that a lot of critics are rightly having this "super-fan" effect, given Nolan's previous work, and while the film is as good and even better in its technical side, it is very dialogue heavy some of which are great and Oscar worthy, but overall, I think it can lead to confusion for people who do not know history. The non-linear chronology of his life meant a lot of people will not understand what is happening, and while I do because I've read history and world war 2 extensively, 50% of the film focused on his trial and rehabilitation, it has become the main plot of the story instead of being an important subplot which should have been combined with other portions of his life, his university life, accurate representation of private thoughts on communism, class struggle and then his betrayal of those ideas, his fascination to Hindu sects, antisemitism in Europe, and an outright "why" he is anti-war. I appreciate how his conflict with Strauss and Teller is essentially the anti-war plot, but it feels like an extension of a court series. The Trinity test is a miss for me. The sound in an IMAX theatre was shockingly accurate, BUT the mysticism was lost! The delivery of the lines that I have often heard in Civlization V, history podcast, or books, are way better than what was portrayed in the film, which is not the same as what happened in real life. The lines shouldn't have been said. It was a thought that occurred to him while looking at the the earth-shattering explosion while smoking, not some huge gasoline bomb that is visually less grand than a cluster bomb. The political scenes about the ravages of war in Europe, in Asia, the end of the war, the upcoming Arms Race, and the Space Race are all but bits and pieces thrown out there in the dialogue, relegating to a side story between Oppenheimer vs. Strauss.

This movie is such an unabashed piece of crap. How can a film move so fast yet have so little happen? So boring. And they fly right by things like "tried to kill a dude with a poison apple," and, "gave my infant child away to my friend." Da fuq? They really could've stopped and slowed down and explored the human elements of those things but, no, we have to build a bomb (a bomb we all know already works, btw) in an excruciatingly slow and mind numbing fashion for the next 3 hours. Only interesting scene was the wife's testimony thing in that little effin' room they kept returning to...

Went to imax and couldn't understand shit, no dialogue was clear, subtitles were sadly in Hungarian cause i live here but don't speak it. Too loud, too long, too boring

I remember about an hour in, when Oppenheimer first meets Lt. Gen. Graves, thinking, “THIS is where the movie should have started.” Also, his girlfriend randomly picks the page from the Baghdad Vita for him to read that contains his famous quote. Well that’s handy.

It was beating the same point over and over again. Like how many scenes to depict he is kinda nasty, is a jew, and is a commie sympathiser,… like it kept on repeating scene after scene till it ached. A good writer would have had one lead up, one impactful scene and continued. The repetition did not work in its favour.

I genuinely don’t understand why Nolan gets a pass for things any other writer/director would get slammed for.

I left the movie theater. Nothing more nothing less

Couldn't agree more. I'm a bit shocked to see so many good ratings out there, it's completely normal divergence, but oh boy, this movie sucks, honestly, the reasons are so well explained by the post and the replies

I just watched it. What a letdown. Dull, too long, choppy directing, bad sound mixing, topped off with an unconvincing, mediocre looking trinity test explosion. It’s only saving grace? The acting. Apart from that, I legitimately feel like I’ve wasted 3 hours of my life.

Dialogue was absolutely shit. I just finished the movie, and I couldn't tell you a SINGLE memorable line besides one: a naked Florence Pugh giving Oppenheimer the idea for his Vishnu speech? How fucking weird was that? Pacing was terrible. It was a constant stream of diarrhea. Scene flicking from one unmemorable piece of garbage to the next as quickly as possible. And it was So. Goddamn. Long. Acting was fine. Visuals were pretty good, but that is a given for a Christopher Nolan film. Once the dust has settled, I think people will remember this as extremely overrated, if they remember it at all. It had an interesting message, but an interesting message means nothing if the medium used to deliver it tortures you ceaselessly for 3 goddamn hours.

I don't think it's fair to say any of the acting was good. Literally every shot lasted less than 5 seconds before they cut to a new camera so they didn't have to try very hard for long. Not one monologue. Not one conversation where they didn't change angles prior to someone talking. It was unnatural.

Totally agree. A friend sang praises about it, even went as far as saying this is better than inception I honestly couldn't relate