Oppenheimer? More Like Waste-of-Timer.

I have only ever walked out on three movies in my life; Oppenheimer is the most recent of that trifecta of awful. I don't do many movie reviews on the blog, but every now and then a movie comes along that is so bad I can't be silent.  Such is the case with Oppenheimer.  I have no idea how a brilliant director like Christopher Nolan, comes together with a fascinating moment in history and an all-star cast to somehow create the most boring turd I've seen since 2001's Enigma with Kate Winslet.  (By the way, Enigma was the first movie I ever walked out on.  Movie number two on my walk-out list was Blade 2, although by comparison with the others it was a hoot and a half.)  So, before you head out to the movie theater with a sizeable chunk of your hard earned money to plunk down in exchange for tickets to this snooze-fest, let me give you a brief run-down of why you should just skip it and watch something more worth-while, like SpongeBob or something.

1. Florence Pugh.  I don't hate FP.  She's a great actress and I loved her performance in Midsommer.  But a bombshell she most definitely is not and I am excessively tired of being told that she is.  FP is an average looking woman with an average looking body which is why she was great in Midsommer, very relatable as a regular girl going through a rough time.  I definitely never wanted to see what's under her clothes and when I did in Oppenheimer, I looked away quite mournfully as I was fully aware that I would never be able to get out of my mind the image of her bare breasts, which look like two baleful bloodhounds catching the scent of prey in different directions, joylessly bobbing up and down on a mostly clothed and fully disinterested Cillian Murphy.  I don't fault him for being disinterested, and not just because there wasn't anything terribly great to look at, but because FP also seemed bored with the whole affair.  There was no chemistry of any kind to the point that their sex scenes could have been conducted with each of them going solo, or eating a plate of nachos--together or solo--and had more spark.  It was gross, just gross and clearly only put in there to have sex in the movie so that brainless masses would find something titillating about this tedious film.  But it failed, and how.

2. The Entire Rest of the Cast.  This movie is filled, overflowing in fact, with amazing actors...who have no lines and play basically no role.  All of these top-of-their-game talents are completely under utilized.  Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer's wife has only a handful of lines and basically serves to just stand there silently while events unfold, as does Rami Malek, Robert Downey Jr., Kenneth Branagh, and the brilliant Matthias Schweighöfer.  Nada; they contribute very little to absolutely nothing.  By the way, if you are looking for a good movie, watch Matthias Schweighöfer in Army of Thieves, a delightful prequel-but-able-to-stand-alone movie about a bank heist set against the back drop of a zombie apocalypse.

3.  Zero Likeable Characters.  While at university Oppenheimer tries to poison a professor for poking fun at him.  So, right out of the chute, he's kind of a bastard.  He cheats on his wife with Emily Blunt's character, who is also cheating on her spouse.  Then leaves the first wife-FP, marries the second-EB, then cheats on her too.  He womanizes, drinks, ladder climbs, plays politics, pursues the bomb even after his reason for doing so, Hitler, is no longer a threat.  Both his wives are horrible selfish people in their own rights, and basically everyone who is in this movie for more than ten seconds is kind of despicable.  So, Oppenheimer can't live with himself for blowing up Japan....Um, I'm sorry, which part of his life is he supposed to be proud of exactly?  He's just presented as a rotten person through and through who is surrounded by other rotten people all desperate to do bad things.  No one is relatable.  No one is redeemable.  I was super glad when first wife-FP ceased to be; I only wish it had happened sooner and to far more characters in the movie.  I wish they had built a micro-bomb and dropped it on themselves in a Tarantino Inglourious style alternate reality ending.

So, nearly two hours into the movie but somehow no where near the end, I leaned over to my companion and said, "we can go anytime you're ready."  She looked at me, mirroring the same bored desperation I felt and said, "I'm good to leave right now if you are."  Relieved that it wasn't just me hating this awful movie, I jumped up and led the way through the dark theater and out to the car so we could begin our hour and a half long drive dishing all the way.  The one good thing to come of this experience was that I got to use this quip, Oppenheimer?  More like Wasteoftimer! which I thought up while I was fighting to stay awake during the movie.  Whether it was because it was very clever or because the bar for entertainment was just at rock bottom, my friend and I had a hearty chuckle over that one.    Either way, I'll take the win.

So, if you want to know more about this historic event, save yourself the boredom and just read about in a book or on Wikipedia.  It's bound to be more interesting than this film.  That is all.