I saw OPPENHEIMER in 70-millimeter format. I wish I had liked it better, but I didn't. What I disliked most about it was the soundtrack. There was INCESSANT background noise that rumbled and roared and thudded (with a lot of Sensurround-style vibration) throughout the film. Sometimes it drowned out the actors, several of whom were hard for me to understand in the first place. The style of the photography was also off-putting. To make it seem like a documentary or a period-piece, sections of it were filmed in black-and-white or used filters to deaden the colors. I think all these gimmicks were there to disguise the fact that the script wasn't really very focused and was 3 hours long. The script is based on true historical events, and reality isn't easily shoehorned into a coherent plot. It was never clear to me exactly what the point was. There are a lot of good actors in this movie, but I didn't know who they were until I saw the credits! I still think of Matt Damon and Robert Downey Junior as young men, and they're NOT! I thought Downey gave the best performance in the film, though. The art direction and costume design seemed to accurately depict the period, although thanks to the cinematography, we'll never know what the true colors of anything were. (I wonder if the film-maker told these people that he was going to use stylized cinematography beforehand, or whether they found out when they saw the film.) I admire the film's ambition, and I think the issues it raises are things that people should think about, but I wonder if it would have been better if they had just told the story.
Review of Oppenheimer
