By Joseph Leon
Oppenheimer is a cinematic experience that I thought was impressive overall. Its visuals and audio design were incredibly impressive, its handling of the Manhattan Project as an event was very intense and it starred amazing talent such as Cilian Murphy and Robert Downey jr. However, there are some issues that I have with the movie’s pacing that keeps it from being great to me
In short, the movie covers Oppenheimer's life, his experiences leading the Manhattan Project, and its aftermath as well as the destruction of Oppenheimer’s reputation after the Soviets dropped their own nuclear bomb. It was incredibly interesting to watch the process of the development of the bomb, the explanations of different concepts in quantum theory, and the human drama of different people . As great as that was, that part only starts halfway through the movie.
This movie is a whopping three hours long and I feel that at least 45 minutes of that could have been left out. The plot moves around between three different perspectives and different places in time. Oppenheimer’s life as he goes through school and leads the project, the board of national security interviewing Oppenheimer and his colleagues, and Congress discussing these issues. As a result the movie has a tendency to jump around from place to place especially in the beginning to the point where it feels incoherent. It just doesn’t give enough of the character driven aspects of the story sufficient time to get you invested. Overall it felt like those three hours were not earned, I give it a 3/5
Mr. Leon's Movie Rating Scale
5/5 : One of my favorites
4/5 : Great movie, I would see again
3/5 : I enjoyed it, i’m glad I saw it, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again
2/5 : Lost potential, didn’t like
1/5 : What did I just watch, I wish I was blind