Christopher Nolan directs Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in this biopic of the scientist who gave the U.S. the atomic bomb first.

Hour 1: See Robert Oppenheimer meet a load of scientists, students and professors one by one with no real context as to what they might add to the narrative. The cavalcade of famous faces playing 40th billed non entities never quits until the dying moments of the lengthy runtime.

Hour 2: Los Alamos and the building and the testing of the bomb. Man becomes myth, Nolan’s ability to bring intimacy to scale and immediacy to unwieldy concepts crosses the finish line. It is about 70 minutes of fantastic cinema. Damon shines as a good humoured military foil. Boom Boom shake shake the room. All done with practical FX.

Hour 3: The trials of Robert Oppenheimer, allowing the big moral trauma of the bomb to be debated and metaphorically illustrated. Owes much to Stone’s JFK. Permits Murphy and Blunt to get their acting on. The guy next to me farted violently throughout the movie but this final push of hearings and conspiracy really fired up his guff pipe. How nice is it to see a movie in a packed screen?!

6

Perfect Double Bill: Dunkirk (2017)

My wife and I do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/