EDIT: In sports terms, this film was Eli Manning. Good but not great. But with enough people who will argue he was great. Just like Oppenheimer, there were 10+ other QBs who win those SBs on the same exact team.
I feel like I'm being gaslit by the reviews of Oppenheimer. Even @Ketchum 's hyperbole regarding the film seems wild to me.
Ultimately, I believe that the product Hollywood has put out the last 15+ years has been so mediocre/bad that if you put together a decent film it gets incredible reviews.
Oppenheimer isn't even in Nolan's top 5, much less an all-time great film.
**I FREAKIN LOVE NOLAN. "CHRIS DON'T MISS" is one of my favorite quotes. But I'm not going to let my love for a Director cloud my judgement of the work at hand.**
Oppenheimer is good. You should watch it. However, there are 20+ directors that could put together an equally compelling story.
Some quick thoughts:
-The villain was weak. So weak that the film required 30 minutes trying to convince us how bad he was, when really he was just a petty dude with a gripe. Compared to Heath Ledger's Villain in TDK, or Hugh Jackman's in the prestige, or Insomnia, the villain is relatively mid. IMO, the non-fiction nature of this story either A) didn't have a clear villain or B) Nolan didn't want to take too many liberties to create a more compelling one.
-The typic Nolan timeline/storytelling was weak. Dunkirk had an incredible timeline with 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week all overlapping. Brilliant. Memento's timeline, obviously amazing. Inception and Interestellar, wildly creative. Oppenheimer tries to differentiate perspectives with color and black and white, but compared to these above, it's just meh.
-The subject matter of this film is amazing. If you just read the wikipedia article about Oppenheimer, it grips you too. But let's not get mixed up between the subject matter (which has nothing to do with Nolan) and his portrayal of it. It's an explosive topic (see what i did there) that is exciting with no theatrics at all. The bar to make this "exciting" more so than what the pure facts give us, is pretty low.
Any awards Oppenheimer receives are indictment on the rest of Hollywood's product. Good movie, not great.
I feel like I'm being gaslit by the reviews of Oppenheimer. Even @Ketchum 's hyperbole regarding the film seems wild to me.
Ultimately, I believe that the product Hollywood has put out the last 15+ years has been so mediocre/bad that if you put together a decent film it gets incredible reviews.
Oppenheimer isn't even in Nolan's top 5, much less an all-time great film.
**I FREAKIN LOVE NOLAN. "CHRIS DON'T MISS" is one of my favorite quotes. But I'm not going to let my love for a Director cloud my judgement of the work at hand.**
Oppenheimer is good. You should watch it. However, there are 20+ directors that could put together an equally compelling story.
Some quick thoughts:
-The villain was weak. So weak that the film required 30 minutes trying to convince us how bad he was, when really he was just a petty dude with a gripe. Compared to Heath Ledger's Villain in TDK, or Hugh Jackman's in the prestige, or Insomnia, the villain is relatively mid. IMO, the non-fiction nature of this story either A) didn't have a clear villain or B) Nolan didn't want to take too many liberties to create a more compelling one.
-The typic Nolan timeline/storytelling was weak. Dunkirk had an incredible timeline with 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week all overlapping. Brilliant. Memento's timeline, obviously amazing. Inception and Interestellar, wildly creative. Oppenheimer tries to differentiate perspectives with color and black and white, but compared to these above, it's just meh.
-The subject matter of this film is amazing. If you just read the wikipedia article about Oppenheimer, it grips you too. But let's not get mixed up between the subject matter (which has nothing to do with Nolan) and his portrayal of it. It's an explosive topic (see what i did there) that is exciting with no theatrics at all. The bar to make this "exciting" more so than what the pure facts give us, is pretty low.
Any awards Oppenheimer receives are indictment on the rest of Hollywood's product. Good movie, not great.
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