Oppenheimer ‘A total knockout’

‘Totally absorbed in OPPENHEIMER, a dense, talkie, tense film partly about the bomb, mostly about how doomed we are.’

Oppenheimer features an all-star cast and is led by Cillian Murphy, who plays the theoretical physicist who helped develop the bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimerreports the Daily Mail. The Christopher Nolan-directed movie also boasts a cast including Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr and Matt Damon.  Film critic Robbie Collin from The Telegraph raved on Twitter: ‘Am torn between being all coy and mysterious about Oppenheimer and just coming out and saying it’s a total knockout that split my brain open like a twitchy plutonium nucleus and left me sobbing through the end credits like I can’t even remember what else.’

Vulture movie critic Bilge Ebiri gushed: ‘OPPENHEIMER is...incredible. The word that keeps coming to mind is “fearsome”. A relentlessly paced, insanely detailed, intricate historical drama that builds and builds and builds until Nolan brings the hammer down in the most astonishing, shattering way.’ Jonathan Dean of The Sunday Times called the film ‘audacious’ and ‘inventive’, and also had some criticism how the female characters were used.

‘Totally absorbed in OPPENHEIMER, a dense, talkie, tense film partly about the bomb, mostly about how doomed we are. Happy summer! Murphy is good, but the support essential: Damon, Downey Jr & [Alden] Ehrenreich even bring gags. An audacious, inventive, complex film to rattle its audience,’ he posted.

‘The downside? The women are badly served - Emily Blunt only once gets out of her stressed mother role. But it’s straight into my Nolan top three, alongside Memento & The Prestige,’ he added. Lindsey Bahr, a film writer for the Associated Press, was also spellbound. ‘Christopher Nolan’s #Oppenheimer is truly a spectacular achievement, in its truthful, concise adaptation, inventive storytelling and nuanced performances from Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon and the many, many others involved — some just for a scene,’ she posted.

‘It’s hard to talk about something as dense as this in something as silly as a tweet or thread but Oppenheimer really is a serious, philosophical, adult drama that’s as tense and exciting as Dunkirk. 

And the big moment – THAT MOMENT – is awe inspiring,’ she continued. ’So many years after seeing that opening shot of The Dark Knight in IMAX at CityWalk and not understanding what I was seeing on a technical level but feeling it, I feel very lucky to have seen Oppenheimer in 70mm IMAX. A once-in-a-lifetime experience,’ Lindsey added  Matt Maytum of Total Film was also blown away by the drama.

‘#Oppenheimer left me stunned: a character study on the grandest scale, with a sublime central performance by Cillian Murphy. 
An epic historical drama but with a distinctly Nolan sensibility: the tension, structure, sense of scale, startling sound design, remarkable visuals. Wow.’ Meanwhile, Elsa Keslassy of Variety tweeted: ‘A sign that French audiences loved #Oppenheimer is that they stayed in front of the Grand Rex theater long after the film ended to debate about it!’  In addition to Cillian, the cast is also made up of Florence Pugh - who plays Oppenheimer’s mistress - Kenneth Branagh, Rami Malek and Josh Hartnett. Oppenheimer was the director of the laboratory which designed the atomic bomb during World War Two as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. The film is being adapted from the 2006 book American Prometheus: The Triumph And Tragedy Of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.

The book, which won the Pulitzer Prize, details Oppenheimer’s personal life and his time leading the Manhattan Project in the early and mid-1940s. Oppenheimer will be released in the US on July 21, 2023.