Oppenheimer Review - Very Good BUT Flawed

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Oppenheimer Review - Very Good BUT Flawed. Price of Reason reviews Oppenheimer in the style of The Critical Drinker and Nerdrotic. Oppenheimer movie review today: It’s been a while since we’ve had original high quality, big budget cinematic releases that are more serious in tone and geared towards adults. Perhaps because Hollywood has become too reliant on franchises and rehashed IPs. Perhaps it’s because it’s been too busy shoving annoying propaganda down everybody’s throat. Whatever the case may be, one thing that has largely disappeared from the cinematic landscape in recent years is more mature, thoughtful, director driven movies. And, if that’s the type of movie you were looking for, I’m happy to report that we finally got that with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. In this video, I will talk about why I think Oppenheimer is a good movie but also discuss a few issues that I had with it.
Oppenheimer’s general plot focuses on the complex history of Robert Oppenheimer, who is credited with inventing and supervising the creation of the atomic bomb for the United States. Something that in 1945 would effectively end the second big war. In the movie, we learn of Oppenheimer’s personal and political background prior to the war, the challenges he had faced during the process of creating the bomb and how his work would ultimately affect him and the entire world.
Let’s start with what I liked about the movie:
1) Christopher Nolan – These days aside from maybe Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, there aren’t many Hollywood directors apart from Cristopher Nolan that are still afforded big budget financing and creative freedom by major studios for original dramas. And Christopher Nolan uses the tools given to him to present his movie exactly the way he wants, in a grand, stylish and unique way. Whether it’s the storytelling, the clever shifts between timelines and locations, set design, quick pacing, or just the great performances he gets from his cast, Nolan’s Oppenheimer feels different than any other historical drama I’ve seen to date because it’s based on a true creative vision from an actual auteur filmmaker. This movie wasn’t written by a marketing committee and didn’t have a bunch of corporate suits overseeing a million reshoots or selling toys. With a screenplay written by Christopher Nolan himself, who also produced, cast and directed the movie. If you’re a fan of Nolan’s previous films I would say that he manages to revisit some of his best, past techniques and themes while still making Oppenheimer feel like something new and fresh. The timeline shifts reminded me a bit of the ones in memento. A few instances of narrative ambiguity and reveals towards the end of the movie reminded me of movies like Inception or The Prestige, while some of the moral questions raised in the movie even reminded me of some of the themes explored in The Dark Knight. Again, this movie is very different than those all those other Nolan films but you can clearly still tell that it’s the made by the same filmmaker and yes, that is a compliment.
2) The Cast – Oppenheimer boasts one of the best casts I’ve seen in a film in many years. Whether it’s major roles, supporting roles or even blink and you missed it roles, almost every actor and actress we see in this movie is considered of high quality, acting wise. Cillian Murphy, in my opinion, gives a career best performance as Oppenheimer himself and it’s nice to see the actor finally get a high profile leading role in a quality movie. Matt Damon brings some charm and levity to his role as General Groves and it provides a nice counter balance to Murphy’s more serious performance. Emily Blunt provides as much depth as she possibly can in the supporting role of Kitty, Oppenheimer’s wife. There are many smaller appearances in the movie by high profile actors like Kenneth Branagh, Florence Pugh, Ramy Malik, Gary Oldman to name a few but for me, the acting MVP of this movie has to be Robert Downey Junior. As Government Official Lewis Strauss, this has to be one of the best performances of Downey’s career. I also want to give actor Alden Erenreich an honorable mention here. The actor’s career took a real hit after the failure of Kathleen Kennedy and Disney Lucafilms’ Solo movie but I’ve always maintained that Erenreich himself is a decent actor. A
3) Visuals – Whether it’s the sets, wardrobe or just overall atmosphere, It’s nice that Christopher Nolan insisted on not using CGI Visual FX but rather practical effects in this movie, including for the climatic bomb scenes.

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