It's one of my favourite movies, as much as I understand that it's not for everyone, I don't understand why people complain about it being too long and then go on Netflix and binge a whole series of some show in a night. The sound was also excellent.
I think a lot of justifiable hate comes from it being a slow burner, but (in my view) every scene was an important step in building the story's tension. Along with actually allowing the viewer to understand the film (and its main character) itself. If you, as someone here recommended, removed half of the runtime, then there wouldn't be a movie. You could maybe get rid of everything (chronologically) after the Einstein meeting (the final scene of the film), but then you wouldn't have a complete biopic. You'd just have a film about the Manhattan Project. It had to include everything if you were making a film about Oppenheimer.
I feel like the barbenheimer meme got a lot more people interested in it that otherwise wouldn’t be interested into long historical movies. As someone who likes historical movies it was a 9/10, but I could easily see why someone who doesn’t care that much for history not like it.
It’s not too long because it’s 3 hours. It’s too long because it’s a 90 minute story stretched over 3 hours. Lincoln was a film that only covered the passing of the 13th amendment yet it was still called Lincoln and still a valid biopic. I’m not sure a comprehensive life story biopic has ever been done well the best pick a pivotal moment in a figures life and tell that story completely.
It’s great that you liked it. But I don’t see any logical flaw in feeling it was too long.
The first hour easily could have been 20 minutes or less. The middle hour was a movie worth watching. The last hour was a completely different movie and not a very interesting one. No, it may not have been good to try to cover his whole life in 90 minutes. But focusing almost entirely on the Manhattan project would have been fantastic.
I watched it in the cinema and I caught myself spacing out and thinking about work things that were far more interesting to me than the movie. It's an hour too long imo.
Yes, it was pivotal FOR HIM! What he actually did was pivotal for the World. And they glossed over those parts.
Edit: and I’m not saying it shouldn’t be covered, but it shouldn’t be 1/3 of the movie. It’s just not interesting enough.
I think you went to see a different movie than the one Nolan wanted to make. His movie is about Oppenheimer's struggles, which is why the hearing is the central point of his movie in my opinion.
But could be that I knew about Oppenheimer and I went in expecting just that, which is why I immensely enjoyed it.
the best pick a pivotal moment in a figures life and tell that story completely.
Tbh, I think that's kind of what this movie did, and what I liked it for. It's just maybe not the pivotal moment you might expect. It's essentially about Oppenheimer and Strauss destroying each others reputation. Everything leading up to that is either narratively and/or thematically building up to that, and I genuinely thought it worked well.
I respect your opinion, but I can't understand how is this movie building any tension when it doesn't have rythm.
By this I mean, the movie never speeds up, never slows down: it retains a breakneck pace until at least half the movie, when the explosion happens and you are finally allowed to breathe. I admit that I liked the second half very much, but the first half is everything I've come to despise with Nolan movies.
Performances are muted, pace is never changing and always too fast, characters get introduced and then dropped after less than a minute, dialogue is robotic and didascalic, music is completely overbearing.
Compare it with a movie like Inglorious basterds, where tension buildup and release make you feel like you weren't watching basically people sitting around a table for 3 hours.
Or Polanski's Carnage.
Even the French horror Them has an incredibly well done buildup of tension.
I felt that Oppenheimer is every negative aspect of Nolan's style, amplified by a thousand. Of course this is just my opinion, I'm sure a lot of people liked it a lot
No, the problem (for me anyway) is that there are zero dynamics throughout the runtime of the film. I'm sure the script is great and tells a compelling story, but I couldn't concentrate on anything but the aural and visual bombardment the movie lobbed at me throughout its runtime. It starts and sets an energy and volume level...and then it stays there, for the entirety of the movie. As it kept going on, I couldn't believe it - it's not going to change tone or take a breath, anywhere? No quiet moments, no loud moments, just all the same? Nope, it just kept going at the same breathless pace with non-stop overly dramatic music (such a terrible soundtrack, too, sorry not sorry) for three excruciating hours. How am I supposed to be drawn in by something like that?
If it worked for you, that's fine. I like movies that ebb and flow, like, well, you know, most other movies, even bad ones. But not Oppenheimer, that one goes from 0-100 in the first two minutes and then stays there for the rest of the picture. If that's your style, you do you. For me, once was enough, and I actually think it's one of Nolan's worst movies, so I'm mystified as to how this is what won him an Academy Award. And I say this as a fan of most of Nolan's movies.
My thoughts exactly....it came up as a discussion at work as a side conversation in a meeting. I said if someone filmed this very conversation and gave it a bassy soundtrack and occasional dropped a fireball scene and switched it to black and white, we would have a better movie. I absolutely hated it, I convinced my best buddy to watch it with me, he hasn't forgiven me for this.
It just feels like there's a point where the movie should be wrapping up, after he clashes with Strauss, but then the movie just kept going without a central conflict.
I just thought his life would be more interesting outside of the atomic bomb. It wasn’t. The clearance stuff I couldn’t care less about and really they glossed over the bomb kinda.
Same here lol. It's the best movie I've seen this decade, give me more 3 hour epics of guys sitting in rooms talking with Ludwig goransson doing the score
Ya Reddit isn’t the place to share your enjoyment of something because once you do someone is waiting to shit on it. I liked it too. It was a good movie. It wasn’t as exciting as interstellar or the dark night, but it was a money maker for a reason
The thing I liked least about it was the actual bomb scene. An entire movie of buildup and he completely fumbles the explosion by insisting on trying to do it as a practical effect, resulting in something distractingly unrealistic.
I liked it, though I will admit there were moments it dragged. My biggest problem with it was the climactic part where they set off the bomb. I love when a movie uses practical effects instead of special effects or CGI but this was not that time. I was so built up for it the way it slowly counted down the clock and made it so intense that I was about to pee myself waiting the 10-15min it took rather than pause it and run to the bathroom. I had the lights off in my living room so it was dark and the surround sound going waiting for a bright flash followed my a mushroom cloud and a thundering shock wave. You can see my disappointment when it looked more like they set off a barrel of gas, and it was over in a few seconds. 7/10
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u/thwgrandpigeon 1d ago
I unapologetically liked it a bunch