Just Watched OPPENHEIMER!! Instant Reaction & Review!
what is going on there citizens of the reject Nation Greg and John are back at the theaters right now where we just saw right over there Oppenheimer from Christopher Nolan on IMAX 70 millimeter and we got good seats the way Nolan intended for it to be seen in its most awesome maturity this is a three hour epic harrowing drama but we are going to do our best to keep this review in like 10 minutes exactly so uh brief recap on you know a basic plot description if you’re not familiar with the story of Robert Oppenheimer
you guys might know this you know a few years ago there was a thing called an atomic bomb that was created because we had to beat the Nazis to it and you know help us win this war This World War II of sorts and uh this is the story of how this came to be and how this was created at the same time it also follows a story because no one likes to play with timelines and it also follows the story post a creation of atomic bomb it’s intercutting with what I call the trials Robert
Oppenheimer because in a time of McCarthyism where if you you know scratch your nose the wrong way it’s so easy to be labeled the Communist and Robert Oppenheimer an American physicist
Nolan and he finally has a leading role here and I think more than just saying like hey he did a great job on this performance I feel like this whole movie is sort of directed and edited like composed in every fashion based around the character of Robert Oppenheimer everything he is feeling internally so to start off with I would say Killian Murphy his performance is nothing short of phenomenal I feel like he’s easily got a contender race to become best actor winner come this year’s Oscars because he does bring every quality that you might have
ever heard of Robert Oppenheimer and even more so he brings that enigmatic quality he brings that reclusive yet charismatic quality uh this Fascination quality uh at the same time this anxious anxiety fantasy filled mind I adored every second he was on screen and most of this movie is him on screen John what did you think absolutely and Murphy no he’s phenomenal in this movie and it is you know a film that has the burden of being both semi a biopic but also just a depiction of a historical era essentially and a turning point for the
entire world and I think the movie while a lot to take in very much I think encapsulates and reflects the mindset of This brilliant guy who has been saddled with this impossible task that has these moral implications that just no human no one human should really ever have to process and deal with and the way that both he portrays that struggle and the movie surrounding it embodies that struggle I thought was really captivating and gripping and and yeah like I don’t know the most about J Robert Oppenheimer but having seen footage I thought his performance
managed to I love Killian Murphy I’m aware of Killian Murphy a lot but I I totally lost him into this and he just became the character for me absolutely became the character here I mean really this movie has more cameos in the flash if we’re thinking about celebrities it’s like every time they introduce a new character like every 15 to 20 minutes you’re like oh there’s another famous actor and another character I don’t know this guy was another character a lot of times they’re not just character actors they’re like well-known actors some some veteran actors
in fact it’s a constant case of did not know this guy’s in this movie and it just kept happening throughout and here’s the interesting thing about the Caster like we could spend forever breaking down how we’ll be here for like 45 minutes being like this person’s great and here’s why this person here’s why so I feel like we kind of have to like pick and choose because bottom line everyone in this movie even if they’re only on screen for just a few minutes they’re excellent so freaking phenomenal every single one of them Robert Downey Jr
as Louis Strauss uh what is his position across the chairman of the aec or something he’s a part of the presidential cabinet that seems to be like the direct liaison between the people conducting this project and you know President Eisenhower you know whoever else it was in office you know throughout this process Truman was the one in whoops yeah there you go see and this is a movie that that for me for a person who’s like man I remember learning the broad Strokes of this growing growing up I want to now dive in and learn
actually the finer points because it’s a movie that does kind of inspire you to get the real history under yourself yeah I felt like Robert Downey Jr I mean many people will probably go in Ormond you know like here he gets completely lost in this role where all I saw was his character who you could believe as I mean I I really didn’t know much about the Lewis Strauss person the real life figure of this guy so I don’t really want to ruin too much of it but there is this brilliant sort of ruthlessness to
this character duplicitousness is koi would like to say this is the word yeah because you spend so much time wondering what his true motivation is what his true nature is and for all Robert Downey Jr’s fears about not being able to act after doing so much Marvel uh I it was a joy to see him truly embody your role and really throw down on something meaty that really you know engages all of his chops and then some I loved uh Matt Damon as the general who’s the one who selects Robert Oppenheimer to be the head
of the Manhattan Project uh the director of the Manhattan Project as just this straightforward military man and he he there’s there’s aspects to his performance that kind of remind me of he’s not as like mean as this but the way how you have such a serious epic ensemble in The Departed then you had like Mark Wahlberg there to bring some type of levity I sort of felt like that’s kind of what Matt Damon brought here he’s the most every man while still being stern and still being in a great position of power certainly and then
while having someone like Robert Oppenheimer who’s very uh in his own head very reflective ruminates quite a lot and then to have someone like Matt Damon’s character who’s just a straight shooter all the time uh it just cuts through the at every single moment given I loved watching them play off each other some female performers here you know he saw Forest Pew here but Emily Blunt was a character that initially in the first acts of this movie I was like I don’t really know how I feel about Emily Blunt because the woman in this movie
just kind of show up to be like pissed off and angry and depressed and that’s about all they’re really given but Emily Bun’s character as uh Robert’s wife without spoiling much she as the movie progresses as she evolves she gets to have some of the like truly standout scenes yeah and she becomes a sort of eye line and a sort of conduit for audience throughout this and she voices a lot of the things you will be sitting in your seat kind of screaming in your head yes yes so now when it comes to the writing
and directing of this film liked it way more than tenant that’s way more characters have names in this movie in fact care spected as an experiment but yeah this is definitely in the vein of his historical epics like a Dunkirk but with a much more you know personal and human element I mean it’s still a broad swath of a situation it is still giving you kind of a communal Glimpse at what’s going on however it does have a very strong anchor at the center with J Robert Oppenheimer that’s what I mean because this whole movie
has this this style that no one’s really good at which is sort of this strange choice of like Fast editing dealing with time messing with audio but this is it very much like fine tune it’s there’s a nice finesse to it and I feel like in the first hour it might take some adjusting to because it sort of just throws you into the muck of it with the kind of style that it is with hopping around a couple of timelines and the way they handles the editing of the scenes where I imagine it could be
a tad bit rough because a lot of it will also inter splice with what’s going on in his own mind more than just going on the physical reality it’ll go into like the imagination of Robert Oppenheimer which often involves space quantum physics Explorations explosions whatever it may be stuff that you’ve seen waves and all sorts of things that for us lay people are impossible to imagine which I love that’s a glimpse yeah which I love I’m not no by being someone who constantly researches quantum physics but I do believe in in the idea that like
uh that’s an idea to me is just a quantum physics thing that’s been proven is that thoughts are an energy in a reality so I love that when you’re watching a movie about a Quantum physicist who has to develop something based solely in quantum physics and now you hop into his mind and you’re watching how his imagination uh essentially manifests into reality through like the law of action so I thought that was like really cool to see so I was a real sucker for it my advice from watching it is basically that if it takes
some adjusting to because while it can be kind of this cacophony of like of a sensory experience of sound design which I thought was excellent here you can actually hear what the characters are saying which I really appreciate I know but they’re talking I know what they’re saying I like this um but a lot of times there could be this just like there’s this thing that just kind of has like a gut punch of a sound design effect here that just cuts to things uh and a lot of times knowing how to complete like cut
out of sound and then just fo there’s so many great moments of sounding like to me I’m like as many complaints as people had about sound design and no one films I’m like I feel like this this has an argument to be made for winning the Oscar for best sound design yeah uh because it does create an immersive experience so the the thing I found myself doing was just sort of surrendering to what was happening here that was sort of the emotional thing that I would say to when you’re watching this is kind of just
give yourself over to what’s happening and you will be able to absorb what’s going on like there’s there’s a couple of things about this movie that I don’t really find that great uh but in the meantime but John yeah I mean it kind of like really Hogs no no bad here because I did have a great experience with this I 100 agree I mean I think it’s a really striking sensory experience both on the aural and from the sound design of just the diegetic effects and the sort of um you know impressionistic use of sound
through the psyche of the character but also Ludwig Gordon’s score I thought was really nicely done I thought it managed to balance some really great tangible organic instrumentation with some more synthetic instrumentation and things that crackle like Geiger counters do when Nolan hires him does he go I don’t want you to be Hans Zimmer but do some type of shade I think he studied with Hans Zimmer or he’s like a protege so I think it works without them having to do that but you do get that sense of like this feels Hans Zimmer Grand because
I’ve heard so much Ludwig where I don’t usually go to Hans Zimmer but I remember in tenet thinking the same thing sure and I’m sure that no one has like sort of a a Bible of like here’s kind of what the sound feel I like for my movies is but uh but yeah but yeah I really liked his contribution and I thought this in photography was really great and I believe they developed like black and white iMac stocks before this movie which I am a big sucker for black and white photography especially and I personally
thought it was clever the way that they balanced color and black and white throughout this and the choice of which timelines correspond to what uh your results certainly will vary but I thought it was beautifully photographed if you can at least yeah I know it bothers some people when the aspect ratio has changed but there’s just so much gorgeous IMAX framing in this movie and when they depict the theoretical stuff and the bomb stuff it is quite striking and you know kind of overpowering yeah I mean sometimes it can be um yeah you can be
overwhelmed with the way a lot of this is done but what I would say that I think Nolan has really mastered the craft on when it comes to no one does IMAX better than Nolan in my opinion I mean he started it with the Dark Knight so he has the best handle on it and 99 of the time when people use IMAX what’s it for action scenes Big Big scenes and what I found interesting was he he’s the one who really knows how to lean into the emotion of when to use an iMac shot whether
it be a transition there’s plenty of scenes but it’s just it’s not it’s not action it’s just dialogue people contemplating and listening and weighing facts a lot of them yeah and it and it’s like it’s it’s perfectly calculated to me at least I know it can be distracting for some people like I heard a couple of little uh things people were saying after we were done watching the movie but I think it’s like really well calculated uh on every on every front uh because I think a lot of times he wants to kind of disrupt
you you know yeah and I think too he wants to take you for a sensory Journey a lot of the time and the way that the image just envelops you combined with the cacophony and the Mad race especially in this movie to this catastrophic Finish Line I think it does that job of enveloping you it’s almost overwhelming but it to me and and I think you said too when you just let it wash over you and when you Vibe with it you know I think you’ll catch all that you need it’ll certainly give you more
on multiple viewings yeah but as a first experience yeah I was I think all the elements of you know movie Magic came together to create something quite striking and transportive I mean most of it seems like it is it’s really uh studied with uh as much veracity as possible as I would say yeah and it’s text and my wife introduced me to the story of Robert Oppenheimer and I remember being like fascinated by I still don’t remember the destroyer of world’s code whatever that is oh yeah now and become death to the story of Worlds
yeah I remember like learning about it and then and then hearing I was like oh what this guy was so disturbed by what he had created and what you’re watching here in this movie that that I thought was incredibly great to capture on camera is you are seeing the story of a man who had no ill intent whatsoever this is like he is someone who who should be well regarded should be revered and I believe the word would be like posthumous where you’re like regarded well later on in life yeah it’s like you’re you’re given
sort of a reassessment posthumously to yes sort of posthumously yeah it’s a sort of re-evaluate your place in history and and hey maybe we were a little bit too gung-ho with a lot of this communism stuff and trying to tear you down in the face of this yeah because you see a guy who was just passionate about science and and really had great intentions the whole time but then you are watching how this did dramatically affect him you are seeing the repercussions and the psychological turmoil it went through and also the realization of the consequences
and how being so Purpose Driven can cause you to make some choices that Blindside you there’s a lot of great commentary here about its Obsession and the path that can lead you down that I thought was really really well orchestrated here and of course carried strongly through Killian Murphy’s performance well yeah in the way science and politics and ethics all co-mingle and don’t co-mingle and the ways in which you might approach something with the best of intent and even raise your concerns and yet be met later with accusations that you know you weren’t above board
or that you know you were had multiple ulterior motives or whatever that might be and how hard it is to just be one single person amidst all of that thousand percent yeah and to have your image you know kind of taken away from you and and you know exploited and warped and whatever else yeah I was really impressed by it some of my little complaints it’s gonna sound a little strange at first when I heard this was R rated I assumed it would be because of violence not really uh the fact it’s very minimal here
to the point where like I could totally be in a PG-13 movie because I lot of it is more expressionate it’s the parts that are all right it’s like with the language and then you’ll see that’s already for the sexual immunity and I’m not someone who’s bothered by that obviously not in life I thought the handling is I’ve never I don’t think in the entire time this channel is existed I’ve ever set a sentence like this I didn’t really care for the way a lot of the sexuality is handled in this movie I thought there
were some really odd choices that led to the crowd kind of laughing at moments at which I was laughing with them on it came across a little bit silly and I don’t want to say unnecessary because I understood the context and the point because there’s a lot about Robert oppenheimer’s you know one thing he’s accused of being as a womanizer and uh he’s had his you know sexual exploits and whatnot and like especially there’s been a big deal about Florence few that seems to be the thing about Florence pughes like there’s this thing to do
with Harry Styles you hear what she does in this movie you know and I’m not saying it wasn’t necessary but I think like the execution of a lot of that personal entanglements and such and especially the way the sexuality was done like there’s one moment here yeah where a quote is dropped yes where I was like I was like is this a real addict that was the real because the only reason I think this belongs here if it is if it is if it is a real anecdote and if it’s not uh we let’s unpack
I want the director commentary to unpack this choice because I feel like it’s very split on that element I feel like the fervor behind the camera is really shown in everything else and this is not majority of the movie nor does it exactly feel like an afterthought it just feels like the part that it’s cared for the lessons craftsmanship that kind of feels like no we need it to give you something personal to latch onto yeah so the writing and but especially the directing of some of those choices was like this is just kind of
like corny and weird I saw a tweet that said yeah something about sexuality the way only Nolan could yeah and I saw it and I kind of get what they mean because Nolan is in a sexy filmmaking no I never think of that yeah yeah and so in one respect it’s nice because it’s not too oogly or gross and I think there are moments where the use of things like sexuality and nudity are interesting however as they complement the entire movie it is a thing that sticks out like a weird thumb because you’re like I
think you should have leaned more heavily into this choice or maybe gone with a difference like those scenes need to like breathe you know some of the Executioner was really bizarre to me and and it did lead to people laughing in the theater and like yeah that was that was the part out of any criticism I have up like okay I can understand people are having issues with the IMAX ratio stuff I don’t I don’t subscribe to that personally I can understand uh if the first hour the way the movie’s edited and paste might be
a little bit difficult for you to allow yourself to be absorbed to I totally get that the part where I was like oh yeah I definitely have some weird because it’s like like Florence pughes in it and like I said like the writing of the woman is not great here while Emily Blunt does get eventually out of a three-hour film there yeah most of the time they’re just showing up to be like and moan is what they’re doing um and and Florence Pugh especially is kind of like that character uh so and she’s got a
very interesting presence just as an actress that made me want to know more about that character made me wish that yeah it’s not the point of this movie but maybe that this could have been expanded on a little bit to complement meant everything better because her work is great so yeah guys but in the end I mean on a first time going experience I think this is like why Cinema exists yeah truly yeah this this truly is a cinematic going experience and uh I I think it’s a A Beautiful film and a harrowing one at
that and I think I kind of avoided that word for most of this review I was trying to find a different word but it is a very harrowing film yeah no it’s a lot it’s a cataclysm and it’s all these things colliding and it leaves it left me with a lot to chew on with a lot of you know complicated thoughts and feelings and I would like to see it again just to glean more out of it yeah and I think Nolan uh as a is a better director than he is a writer uh but
the thing is he just knows how to cast so well yeah to the point that like that’s the thing is a lot of times in many other films you might see like a big actor show up for a little bit like they’re freaking wasted and I’d say like maybe there’s a couple here like Jack Quaid for example where I’m like I don’t think he needed to be Jack wait um it could be anybody maybe have more scenes ever cut but most of the actors who just show up for like a scene or two leave an
impacted way to utilize yeah well chosen most of the time you don’t say that bottom line but uh yeah for me I guess I would say like a 99 a nine out of ten for me yeah yeah I’m like a 9.5 out of 10 honestly like I thought this was I thought it was pretty incredible yeah it’s definitely one of my favorite movies of the year yeah absolutely no I I would I would meet you right there I’m at like a nine it’s one of those things where even if there are a couple odds and
ends that don’t quite mesh just the whole undertaking and the whole piece is just so striking and I was yeah just floored through most of it I was gripped but guys uh leave your thoughts down below what’s your favorite Christopher Nolan film I say The Dark Knight you’re cheating other than the tdkr other than Batman of any kind what’s your favorite Nolan leave your thoughts down below thank you guys so much for being here and uh Hey listen we’ll uh we’ll talk with you all soon reject Nation thank you
