UKH

Went to see this last night. Good film but despite the hype and the stellar cast (play spot the actor) I was a bit underwhelmed.

And it was about 1 hour too long. 

Views? 

In reply to Babika:

I found half of it indecipherable, thinking the sound was set up wrong in the cinema but apparently its supposed to be like that!?

¯_(ツ)_/¯ 

In reply to Babika:

I was massively disappointed. Some good acting, great score but mostly an incomprehensible mess. I never did work out what the black and white trial was on about till I googled it afterwards. Far too much back and forwards in time with short scenes so that it was hard to know who was who in the three threads. If they had just stuck to the Manhattan project and the psychology of having created the bomb and cut out the tedious communism stuff it might have been good. I was pretty bored by the end not really knowing what was going on for the last hour.

As for building the "destroyer of worlds" quote in to a sex scene; wtf was Nolan thinking? The film could have been powerfully built around it but it was almost comical. The famous 53 sec clip of Oppenheimer quoting it is more powerful than the whole three hour film.

I would recommend the excellent documentary which was on BBC4 last night before seeing the film to help make sense of it. Should be on iplayer.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Thanks. I'll have a look at the documentary. 

I came home and had to Google Oppenheimer to try and make sense of the timeline and various bits. Was quite pleased to hear references to Heisenberg as I'm a Breaking Bad fan

In reply to Garethza:

I thought it excellent, music too loud but I think I understood most of the time jumps etc. Will see it again preferably with subtitles.

In reply to Robert Durran:

It was called Oppenheimer, not The Manhattan Project, an understanding of his "leftist" background is essential.

In reply to Robert Durran:

I am rather hoping the BBC might re-release their fantastic Oppenheimer drama series from the early 80s? as that was a bit more coherent.

In reply to wercat:

They have!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0g3j9cp/oppenheimer

In reply to Pedro50:

I though the film excellent (apart from the overly loud music, which I attributed to shortcomings in the cinema). However, as you say, it did require knowledge of his leftist background. Some of this was trailed in the early stages of the film. Fortunately, I did know something of his early political affiliations, so the security hearings did make sense to me. I did feel more could have been made of the political context of the security hearings, all part and parcel of McCarthyism and the HUAC hearings. 

In reply to Pedro50:

The music was a bit painful but I found the whole thing really interesting having experienced moral discomfort on a similar subject in my professional life (defence stuff that I found objectionable but was repeatedly asked to work on).

The structure is a bit strange but it was apparent in the first few minutes that the black and white bits were a different time period/ from a different perspective (almost the same thing given that the second perspective character isn't present until after the Manhattan project).

I enjoyed the extra context of the post war stuff, the journey from physicist political figure is interesting, but the resistance against his work being misused (in his eyes) and the impact which that had on him was far more interesting.

In reply to Robert Durran:

All seemed to make sense to me. Didn’t feel hard to follow. I thought it was very good, my wife complained that there wasn’t enough quantum mechanics, I might have struggled with that.

In reply to wercat:

Agree, I bought the associated book after watching it at the time.

In reply to Harry Jarvis:

I didn’t know much about his politics. However, I knew that Klaus Fuchs was a Soviet Agent, so I could see that trouble coming.

In reply to Babika:

I'm not a big fan of Nolan as a director, but in fairness to him, I find his movies require multiple views to fully appreciate them. I've not liked any of his movies upon first viewing. I recently re-watched Dunkirk, Interstellar, and Inception after not particularly liking any of them when I first seen them (didn't think they were awful, but came away from all three massively underwhelmed) and I enjoyed them a lot more re-watching them. Interstellar in particular was a lot better on second viewing. The only movies of his I've ever liked straight away were Insomnia, and The Dark Knight.

In reply to Pedro50:

Of course. I just thought the balance was badly misjudged. 

In reply to The New NickB:

Maybe it is just me then. I was bored because I just didn't know what was going on in a lot of it. I had absolutely no idea what the black and white bit was about or who the Robert Downey character was. I've still no idea what the significance of the episode with Einstein by the pond was (I presume it was significant because I think it was shown three times!). Maybe my brain just isn't big enough; I much prefer a nice linear story I can enjoy and often struggle with more complicated formats.

You can never have too much quantum mechanics! 

In reply to Robert Durran:

Think of Oppenheimer as a quantum telling of the story.

In reply to Babika:

We were quite impressed by the film - the opening sequence was hypnopic - would it ever end (as in the world,  I suppose) ? I lot of the buildup to the main event was over-procedual, the sex-talk banal, but we,ve always loved Tom Conti, so that was a bonus. The most interesting thing was the makeup of a saturday afternoon audience at Home, Manchester - never seen  so many drinks and snacks - and some young people too (PB man I suppose) -so unusual ( usually it's 3 or 4 oldies at most watching a complicated French farce.

In reply to Babika:

Im really up for this but can't face three hours in the cinema! Think I'll wait for it to come to the small screen.

In reply to Babika: best Oppenheimer track?

youtube.com/watch?v=-yOkFVhMEL4&

In reply to Babika:

I enjoyed the film but felt weirdly underwhelmed too. Despite being three hours long it keeps up such a pace that you feel beaten into submission by the relentless dialogue and almost incessant soundtrack. This meant the few moments of silence were more ‘explosive’ but I just felt a bit numb afterwards. Watching it on Imax at crazy volumes probably didn’t help either.

Much of the cast were excellent and some of the wide shots really amazing. I’d have liked a bit less genius scrawling on blackboards but generally enjoyed the relative lack of quantum pop references (I was waiting for them to ask Heisenberg if he was certain, etc.). Einstein came across as a humanoid Yoda.

Despite the above it’s an enormously ambitious film and I’d recommend seeing it. I feel like, as stated above, it will improve with repeated viewings.

In reply to Mr Fuller:

I think the problem was that it was overly ambitious and dense and so was shallow and lacking in emotional impact. The psychological effect of the bomb on Oppennheimer seemed to be indicated just by a few bright white flashbacks, which seemed a complete creative cop out.

I'd recommend saving two hours and fifty nine minutes and just watching this: https://www.atomicarchive.com/media/videos/oppenheimer.html

In reply to Babika:

Interesting that several people commented on the soundtrack. We were in row 3 (I like to be fully integrated into the screen) and the noise was so deafening I actually had my fingers rammed in my ears a few times. Don't think I've ever had to do this before! 

In reply to Babika:

Not seen the film yet but there is a excellent Oppenheimer biography called "American Prometheus"...

In reply to Babika:

Are there any aliens in it? It's a well known fact they only started visiting when we got the bomb.

In reply to Babika:

This just makes me unsure if I want see it, on principle.

In reply to Babika:

There is a recent trend (started by the Lord of the Rings) for three hour films.  I'm yet to see one that wouldn't have been improved by editing an hour off it, and Oppenheimer is no exception.  If that's to become the norm they at least need to add a 15 minute interval for going to the loo and getting more refreshments, but I'd rather they went back down to 2 hour films.

Otherwise good though.

In reply to Babika:

I thought it was awesome and not a minute too long. I struggle to sit through a half-hour of anything, but didn't look at the time once in this film. I do know the story and the characters pretty well, so maybe that helped. I picked up lots of details that others may have missed that added to the richness for me but which may have seemed pointless fluff to others. It got the characters of Groves and Oppenheimer more or less as I imagined them. Much was missed out (going all Tolstoy in English here) but a world remained.

In reply to The New NickB:

A lot of male scientists jealous of you on reading this.

In reply to JB:

The film is based on that book.

In reply to Neil Williams:

I think the length adds to the immersive experience of Bladerunner and Dune. You could of course edit a faster paced 2hr film out of both, but they would definitely lose part of what makes them great. 

In reply to Arms Cliff:

I've not to be fair seen either of those, but it was said that Batman was 3 hours for the same reason, and it is sort of true but just too long for my attention span.

Adding an interval would help, as I said, but would that break that "experience" perhaps?

In reply to Neil Williams:

As the last hour of the film dragged drearily on, I considered nipping out for a pee, but held on in fear that I might miss "the good bit" that made it all worthwhile. It never came.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Agree, the bit "after the bang" was roughly twice as long as it needed to be for the amount of actual story there.  I'd take almost the entire hour from that bit.

In reply to mbh:

I think it would help a lot. I'd recommend some background reading before seeing the film. 

In reply to Robert Durran:

Sadly, that's very much what the US government felt about Oppenheimer himself

In reply to Arms Cliff:

to Arms Cliff:

[pedant mode activated] Blade Runner is less than 2 hrs long - Blade Runner 2049 is the long one...  And not a minute too long, an excellent film.

However other recent long films I've seen lately feel like they would have benefitted from some tightening up. 

The Irishman springs to mind immediately... However I think one of the reasons that some of these are so long is that their cinema run isn't really the main way in which the producers expect people to watch it...   

The Irishman was a Netflix original film, which only had a limited run in cinemas to make it eligible for awards, really they expect most people to watch it at home where they can pause, rewind, perhaps even watch it over a few sittings.

I think we'll see more of this as OTT streaming services figure more highly in the producers and directors minds during production.  

In reply to Babika: we enjoyed it and it was absorbing enough for the 3 hours to pass without being bored. There was no reason for the very loud sound track, its like it was pumped up at the last edit before release in an attempt to add more drama. Biggest take away was to be reminded of the horrible prospect of nuclear war after we’ve maybe become desensitised after living with the bomb for so long; I guess that’s what was intended. Next visit to the cinema will probably be Mission Impossible n+1 to decompress. 

In reply to JB:

The film is an adaptation, not sure how faithful, of American Prometheus.

In reply to Arms Cliff:

not quite so highbrow, but went to see Mission Impossible 7 last week which was around 3h and absolutely tip top entertainment (also c.f. John Wick 4 which was similarly great entertainment at 3h). And finally saw the train scene which was filmed in one of the Stoney Middleton quarries.

interesting to see a number of intelligent posters say that this was a bit hard to follow. I didn't have any issue with the structure of it and I was so shattered when I went to see it that I actually had a micro-sleep and missed the bombing of Hiroshima!

I am no Nolan fan-boy but I think he's crafted a masterpiece here, taking rather difficult subject matter and characters who don't offer the audience much to root for, and making a very watchable engaging mature drama. The structure and vibe reminded me very much of The Godfather, Part II (minus the young Vito Corleone flashbacks which are not comparable to young Oppenheimer). That whole "after the big events" hearing, etc. 

I wonder if it is possible for one film to fill all the award nominations for Best Supporting Actor
Thought Dane DeHaan as Colonel Nichols did a great job in a subtle and thankless role easy to overlook. Downey Jr. was virtually a co-lead (and was doing a remarkable impersonation of David Strathairn)

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I hope there'll be room for Ryan Gosling's tour de force as Ken!

In reply to Andy Clarke:

He’ll be up against Murphy for Best Actor in a Lead Role! (then just to subvert the whole message, Margot Robbie will get a Support nomination) 

In reply to Babika:

The non-linear timeline certainly takes some working out due to the inconsistent jumps and lack of exposition(?) leading you into the story. As others have said though the pacing is pushed throughout and the soundtrack is awful. There’s no emotion to the music and given the metronomic pacing of the film made it feel very monotonous. It made the silences stand out, so I guess that could have been the director’s intention and it worked, but the 3hrs of dialog were unintelligible. You know something is wrong when an eliment is pulling you out of the story and drawing attention to itself.  

In reply to Babika:

I thought it was a brilliant film. Enjoyed is perhaps the wrong word but it was engaging and interesting throughout. If anyone wants a light background briefing, I'd recommend a Podcast, "The Rest is History" with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, leaning heavily on the Oppenheimer biography "American Prometheus".

https://open.spotify.com/episode/65maKVgSGVytZEkaL6Cdy6

In reply to Babika:

Overall, I liked it. But the first 2 hours the music is just relentless. It's in every scene, and it cuts between scenes so quick. It was stressful, but not really sure what the point of the stress was.

A friend said it was like watching a bunch of tiktoks about Oppenheimer back to back, and I think that's a pretty funny way to describe it. 

Nolan continues his thing of mixing audio wrong, which he claims to do on purpose, but I just find annoying as hell because you kinda need to hear dialogue..

I thought I was pretty good at understanding stories of movies, but the last hour or so I didn't really follow. I think too many names being dropped, so I just got a bit lost. 

Rami Maleks character basically comes out of nowhere at the end, to save the day.. And I still have no idea what that was about, who he was, or why he seemed to completely know Straus's plan. You see Rami's character I think just 2 other times throughout the film, doing his weird Rami bulging eyes grin thing he does, and I am not even sure he has a single line of dialogue before the end? Why did he know absolutely everything going on behind the scenes?

It was definitely too long. 

I enjoyed it, but it clearly could have been a lot better. It almost would have suited a HBO miniseries better, so the politics of the entire situation could be fleshed out, and the backstabbing feel more consequential. There was never enough character building for me to really give a shit about any of the characters, despite it being 3 hours long. That's kinda impressively bad from a filmmaking perspective. 

It doesn't rank high for me in regards to Nolans films. 

Interstellar was better than Dunkirk, which was better than Tenet, which was better than Oppenheimer. 

So it seems a downward trend for Nolan, unfortunately. 

In reply to Babika:

I did enjoy the appearance of various "actinides" in the cast.  A lot of the bottom row of the Periodic Table turned up at various  times as did some of the elements themselves when Trinity went off.

In reply to Robert Durran:

the Storyville The Trials of Oppenheimer was quite good  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00lpk70/storyville-the-trials-of-opp... 

In reply to mbh:

Are you sure about that principle? 

In reply to Bulls Crack:

Yes and no!