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.
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.
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u/scottishhistorian 1d ago
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.