Oppenheimer

This biopic tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) from his early days working in parallel with the great theoretical physicists of the early 20th century, then a rapidly changing field, his famous time steering the Manhattan Project and his later downfall due to a witch hunt founded on his early association with known communists.

I'm going to go against the grain here.

Great men don't necessarily make great subjects.

Christopher Nolan has stuffed this to the gills with talent. The cinematography is great, the score is great.

Cillian Murphy fills the screen with his tortured looking face to great effect.

It's just not got any spark. I came away with a feeling of watching a three hour montage of the life of Oppenheimer.

I've learned facts. I've learned he was a bit of a shit to his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) and on/off mistress Jean (Florence Pugh). His children are almost completely unseen. I've learned a bunch of stuff about the day to day practicalities of the Manhattan Project. I've learned about the feud that ended his career.

That's it though, it's about a person who did great things but as portrayed seems fundamentally uninteresting. He's portrayed on screen as kind of small and weak while everybody around lauds him. This must be deliberate but for me just makes it bare as the New Mexico mesa much of it is set in.

Oh and another thing: apparently the mix of black and white and colour scenes is significant. I almost always watch films 'cold' and I did with this. I found the reasons for this to be utterly impenetrable during watching. Even having read the explanation afterwards I'm unconvinced. Don't do this shit in mainstream movies it's masturbation.

Not for me 6/10.