Movies OPPENHEIMER ($700M Worldwide; Dragonlord's Review)

[Brampton_Boy]

I hated the film. Oberbloated and didn't capture the palpable fear people felt before testing the first bomb.

I went in with such high expectations, and thought it just dragged on with lazy storytelling. I know I'm in the minority, but I haven't been this let down in a movie since WWZ.

 

[San Marino]

I hated the film. Oberbloated and didn't capture the palpable fear people felt before testing the first bomb.

I went in with such high expectations, and thought it just dragged on with lazy storytelling. I know I'm in the minority, but I haven't been this let down in a movie since WWZ.

Was "Fat Man and Little Boy," from 1989 a better version? I have not seen the new movie yet. Mixed reviews. It seems there is more time spent on Oppenheimer the man and not enough time on the project itself. Just how complex putting the 'implosion' bomb together actually was. How much Plutonium 239 is needed and how much explosive is needed. How fast things need to happen.

 

[BisexualMMA]

Was "Fat Man and Little Boy," from 1989 a better version? I have not seen the new movie yet. Mixed reviews. It seems there is more time spent on Oppenheimer the man and not enough time on the project itself. Just how complex putting the 'implosion' bomb together actually was. How much Plutonium 239 is needed and how much explosive is needed. How fast things need to happen.

Fat Man and Little Boy was worth a watch but also underwhelming if you're looking for the definitive movie about these events. Definitely gave some more human drama partly by moving around a few real life events in different orders.

 

[Goober stoober]

it's a good movie that has a meh plot. spoiler alert: they drop it

the acting was great, it was shot well but the pacing was not my cup of tea.

didn't need to be 3 hrs, made the experience a bit tedious and i kinda wanted it to end before it did.

 

[Bullitt68]

Update: July 19, 2023

Dragonlord’s Review of OPPENHEIMER (No Spoilers)

Bottom Line: Wasn't blown away as it didn't live up to the hype, Oppenheimer is still a solid historical drama with magnificent performances from a first-rate cast and boasts some impressive technical craftsmanship.

Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus, Oppenheimer marks Christopher Nolan’s first movie that doesn’t heavily involve action, fantasy or a crime thriller elements on it. So it was kinda glaring to me how Nolan employs a lot of filmmaking gimmicks, from the wonderful but manipulative music by Ludwig Goransson always pushing a sense of urgency or the sporadically infuriating quick multiple timeline cuts and editing, to keep the audience from getting bored with the more mundane moments in the film.

Oppenheimer tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist and his pivotal role in creating the atomic bomb. The overall story is fascinating and certain parts of the movie are downright riveting but the first hour or so was pretty lackluster (hence the gimmicks mentioned above). Things get more interesting during the Manhattan Project phase culminating in the intense Trinity test. The third act, which was also entertaining, mainly centers on the political fallout complete with the dramatic unveiling of the antagonistic mastermind.

The film is presented in two formats to distinguish between two different perspectives: technicolor, to represent the film from Oppenheimer's perspective, and black & white, to represent a more objective outlook of the events.

Featuring 79 speaking roles, the film boasts a who’s who ensemble cast that will make Oppenheimer undoubtedly qualify among the “movies with best ensemble cast” discussion. Cillian Murphy gives a terrific performance as the titular character but there’s a warmth quality missing from the actor to make me fully connect with his role.

Giving his best acting work in many years, Robert Downey Jr. as American businessman Lewis Strauss steals the movie in the last hour. Emily Blunt, who played Oppenheimer's wife, also stood out and her scenes in the last hour were great. Matt Damon was good acting-wise but I just thought he was miscast as General Leslie Groves and found this chubby version too distracting. Avid fans of Florence Pugh, who plays romantic interest Jean Tatlock, should definitely watch this to see her many naughty bits.

The female nudity and sex scenes in here were a surprise since Nolan has not done these type of exhibition in his previous movies. I think it was a calculated move to include them as to spice things up since the subject matter might not be too enthralling to some. It's a similar move by TV shows where they give you some nudity/sex scenes in episode 1 or 2 to hook in viewers. But I do question the use of the infamous line, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” in the film's sex scene. It was kinda awkward and, depending on the viewer, ridiculous.

The film is a cautionary tale on the dangers of a nuclear arms race and nuclear annihilation. So I thought it was missing a key scene that would have hammered the message home, which is the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Story-wise, It would have also satisfactorily completed the Manhattan Project arc much better. In the film, they just briefly mention the bombing in the radio. 32 years ago, Terminator 2 showed a dream sequence of a nuclear blast which was disturbingly terrifying and is also unofficially declared as “one of the most accurate depictions of a nuclear blast ever created for the screen”. Oppenheimer could have been more powerful if they showed the Japan bombing.

A possible explanation as to why Nolan did not show the Japan bombings might be his desire to not depict the explosion using CGI. Nolan and his team constructed a real bomb to film it for the Trinity test scene.

I definitely need a second viewing to solidify my thoughts on the film and possibly appreciate the film more. Despite being let down by the hype, I still found Oppenheimer to be solid, entertaining historical drama with magnificent performances from a first-rate cast and boasting some impressive technical craftsmanship on cinematography, editing, sound and practical effects.

PRELIMINARY RATING: 7/10

(Please leave a Like if you appreciate my reviews. Thanks.)

Saw this today - on IMAX, on what looks like its last day in IMAX - and was thoroughly disappointed. A lot of what you had to say captured my sentiments, except that you seem to have liked it more than I did. I also thought that Matt Damon was BY FAR the best actor of the bunch and turned in the best performance top to bottom - followed closely by Tom Conti and Casey Affleck - while Murphy was wooden and possessed of an apparent inability to emote. He might not even make my top 10 list of the best performances delivered in the film.

But my biggest problem is that Nolan told the wrong story. He got WAY too bogged down in the proceedings, Murphy's and Downey Jr.'s, to where what should've been a simple framing device took over the fucking movie. There needed to be more of a focus on the people and from where - that is, from whom - the moral conundrums emerged. Who the fuck was Pugh's character? What was her deal, why did Murphy want to fuck her even once much less devote himself to her completely and forever, and why did she kill herself? And, beyond the most basic humanity, why should we care about her in the context of this film? Who the fuck was Blunt's character? Why was she such a terrible mother, why/when did she come back around, what was the second kid like, why did she want to fight so hard, what if anything did her testimony accomplish? Most depressing of all since I have to ask this: Who the fuck was Oppenheimer? What attracted him so much to his scientific obsessions? Why was he so intent on doing what he did? What did he do between Los Alamos and the hearings?

As for the "technical" shit, the score was a cheap Zimmer knock-off - it sounded for the majority of the time like a remix of the Inception score - the endless cuts to the goofy space garble was as retarded as watching a Stan Brakhage movie (Nolan's failed attempt to be Kubrickian à la 2001 perhaps), the jump scare style of using sound and explosions was extremely annoying and would take me out of my investment in the story and my (always failed) attempts to connect to the characters, the visual effects when his "reality" was fracturing after the bomb was contrived and stupid...

At the risk of a bad pun given the scientific subject matter, I'd call Oppenheimer a failed experiment. Nolan hasn't not hit a home run in a long fucking time, but this one stayed in the park. A thoroughly unremarkable film that I'd give no more than a C+, and that largely due to the stellar acting, not the muddled narrative or the misguided aesthetics.

Last but not least: The IMAX was a waste of money in every way. Nobody who streams this on a computer will have missed anything. That's how badly Nolan dropped the ball here.

And, FWIW, all of this comes from one of the biggest Nolan fans on this site. I expect A LOT more from Nolan, and he did NOT deliver here.

 

[Aegon Spengler]

Saw this today - on IMAX, on what looks like its last day in IMAX - and was thoroughly disappointed. A lot of what you had to say captured my sentiments, except that you seem to have liked it more than I did. I also thought that Matt Damon was BY FAR the best actor of the bunch and turned in the best performance top to bottom - followed closely by Tom Conti and Casey Affleck - while Murphy was wooden and possessed of an apparent inability to emote. He might not even make my top 10 list of the best performances delivered in the film.

But my biggest problem is that Nolan told the wrong story. He got WAY too bogged down in the proceedings, Murphy's and Downey Jr.'s, to where what should've been a simple framing device took over the fucking movie. There needed to be more of a focus on the people and from where - that is, from whom - the moral conundrums emerged. Who the fuck was Pugh's character? What was her deal, why did Murphy want to fuck her even once much less devote himself to her completely and forever, and why did she kill herself? And, beyond the most basic humanity, why should we care about her in the context of this film? Who the fuck was Blunt's character? Why was she such a terrible mother, why/when did she come back around, what was the second kid like, why did she want to fight so hard, what if anything did her testimony accomplish? Most depressing of all since I have to ask this: Who the fuck was Oppenheimer? What attracted him so much to his scientific obsessions? Why was he so intent on doing what he did? What did he do between Los Alamos and the hearings?

As for the "technical" shit, the score was a cheap Zimmer knock-off - it sounded for the majority of the time like a remix of the Inception score - the endless cuts to the goofy space garble was as retarded as watching a Stan Brakhage movie (Nolan's failed attempt to be Kubrickian à la 2001 perhaps), the jump scare style of using sound and explosions was extremely annoying and would take me out of my investment in the story and my (always failed) attempts to connect to the characters, the visual effects when his "reality" was fracturing after the bomb was contrived and stupid...

At the risk of a bad pun given the scientific subject matter, I'd call Oppenheimer a failed experiment. Nolan hasn't not hit a home run in a long fucking time, but this one stayed in the park. A thoroughly unremarkable film that I'd give no more than a C+, and that largely due to the stellar acting, not the muddled narrative or the misguided aesthetics.

Last but not least: The IMAX was a waste of money in every way. Nobody who streams this on a computer will have missed anything. That's how badly Nolan dropped the ball here.

And, FWIW, all of this comes from one of the biggest Nolan fans on this site. I expect A LOT more from Nolan, and he did NOT deliver here.

 

[Bullitt68]

Spoiler

 

[Project 2501]

It's a Nolan film, meaning it's made for stupid people to feel smart and cultured. Should've known better than to have any expectations. 6/10. Also is it just me, or do a lot of actors feel like they're playing pretend a little too much? Obviously acting is pretend, but there's just something lately that makes them feel so fake and hokey. I enjoyed Tenet though, I think for all it's flaws with story and audio, the visuals and effects were innovative and probably ahead of their time.

 

[Thrawn33]

Going to check out tonight..hoping I find it decent.

 

[Volador]

Just watched this on Imax yesterday (spoilers). I liked it, would give it an 8/10 or so. I didn’t think it was incredible or among the best I’ve seen. Probably not even among the best Nolan movies.

I liked it because I’m probably the target audience, that is, someone who’s a bit of a science nerd and thought it was cool to see all those characters that I’ve read about at times on screen discussing the bomb, and learn more about what happened during his life, and the movie accomplished that and made me curious to learn more. I agreed that some of the dialogue seemed a bit contrived, e.g: the “destroyer of worlds” line. It’s like they knew that phrase is associated with him so they just had to include it, no matter what. Same with the “God doesn’t play dice” phrase associated with Einstein, just thrown in there. Stuff like that seemed corny, and there were other lines where I could tell they were just trying to sound or be cool. At times it was also very “expository”, like a guy saying “oh yes, I remember I went there and did X, and the reason I did it was because I was thinking Y”. These seemed contrived too, like they were just trying to explain the plot directly to the audience. The movie has tons of characters which at times made it slightly difficult to follow some subplots. I didn’t mind it too much, but I can see how it could bother some. Some scientists are cameo’d or just name dropped, as well as some scientific terms that are just thrown around, which I see how some viewers could not give a fuck about, but I personally thought this was kinda cool. Some of the other “narrative vehicles” I also found slightly strange and a bit forceful, like his lover having imaginary sex with him in the interrogation room while the wife watched lol… the movie tried to be very realistic while incorporating these scenes, which was slightly strange to me. The visual montages of particles I was ok with, since visualizing things in this way is not all that unusual among scientists, and they barely accounted for perhaps a minute and made for some cool imagery. I don’t really share the criticism about not showing the actual bombings. In my opinion it would’ve been kind of pointless and outside the scope of the story, since Oppenheimer never witnessed the bombings in person, and it’s not really a war movie.

Ultimately, I would recommend it to someone who already has some sort of interest in the bomb and Oppenheimer’s life. It’s very dialogue heavy and serious. It’s kind of a high budget niche movie, and I believe that if someone just went into it cold looking to be entertained, they could be bored and find it tedious. I personally enjoyed it, although I wasn’t amazed, and the acting was really good. I actually thought Matt Damon was one of the best characters, and I was expecting him to be garbage lol.

 

[HereticBD]

It's a Nolan film, meaning it's made for stupid people to feel smart and cultured. Should've known better than to have any expectations. 6/10. Also is it just me, or do a lot of actors feel like they're playing pretend a little too much? Obviously acting is pretend, but there's just something lately that makes them feel so fake and hokey.

I haven't seen it, but it might be a case of big stars not being able to shed their stardom for a role. I've heard he's good in this, but every time I saw Matt Damon on screen in an ad, all I could see is Matt Damon. It's a problem I had with a movie like "The Thin Red Line". All the big name cameos are distracting, and take some authenticity away from the moment.

 

[avenue94]

yes, i've watched a lot of info recently, there were several plants where work was being done with Los Alamos as the center. I still don't get why they needed all that manpower for so little elemental material. They built towns for this stuff.

If you want to understand the why part, you need to understand just how high a priority it was for the US. Put it this way: No country has ever built a bomb as the US did over 80 years ago, despite technological advances and the advantage of prior knowledge and experience.

 

[Prefect]

I hated the film. Oberbloated and didn't capture the palpable fear people felt before testing the first bomb.

I went in with such high expectations, and thought it just dragged on with lazy storytelling. I know I'm in the minority, but I haven't been this let down in a movie since WWZ.

It tried telling two stories instead of just one. I agree it should should have just focused on the fear of the nazis getting the nuke and the building of the bomb. The red scare stuff felt like filler.

 

[Prefect]

If you want to understand the why part, you need to understand just how high a priority it was for the US. Put it this way: No country has ever built a bomb as the US did over 80 years ago, despite technological advances and the advantage of prior knowledge and experience.

I don't think people realize this but an insane amount of money was thrown at building a nuke. The only thing that superceded it was NASA landing on the moon, which had a budget 7x of the Manhattan Project. It seems like nuclear weapons related research gets a blank check and NASA was military spending in disguise. I am unsure during WW2 how many countries could afford to build a nuclear weapon. The U.S. spent almost as on nuclear weapons as small arms during the war and it wasn't a sure thing that the program could make it work. Even then, it was incredibly expensive to drop a nuke. Each nuke dropped costed about $5 BILLION to develop, make, and deploy. Heavy bombing was much cheaper and produced a similar level of destruction on Japan, who lost air superiority towards the end of the war and were just getting bombed to hell.




The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project was completed in August 1998 and resulted in the book Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 edited by Stephen I. Schwartz. These project pages should be considered historical.

– All figures in constant 1996 dollars –

Expenditures through August 1945:*

*Includes costs from 1940-42 for the National Defense Research Council and the Office of Scientific Research and Development. Excludes $76 million spent by the Army Air Forces on Project SILVERPLATE from September 1943 through September 1945 (Project SILVERPLATE covered the modification of 46 B-29 bombers in support of the Manhattan Project, trained the personnel of the 509th composite bombing group, and provided logistical support for units based at Tinian Island, launching point for the attacks on Japan).

$20 billion

Comparison With Selected WWII Expenditures:

(Source: Statistical Review?World War II: A Summary of ASF Statistics, Statistics Branch, Control Division, Headquarters, Army Service Forces, U.S. War Department, 1946, pp. 75-6. Cost data are for 1942-1945. The total cost to the United States for World War II was approximately $3.3 trillion.)

All bombs, mines and grenades — $31.5 billion

Small arms materiel (not incl. ammunition) — $24 billion

All tanks — $64 billion

Heavy field artillery — $4 billion

All other artillery — $33.6 billion

Atomic devices/bombs produced and date detonated:



Gadget July 16, 1945 Alamogordo
Little Boy August 6, 1945 Hiroshima
Fat Man August 9, 1945 Nagasaki
Bomb No. 4 unused
Average cost per atomic device/bomb:

$5 billion

 

[europe1]

Who the fuck was Pugh's character? What was her deal, why did Murphy want to fuck her even once much less devote himself to her completely and forever, and why did she kill herself? And, beyond the most basic humanity, why should we care about her in the context of this film? Who the fuck was Blunt's character? Why was she such a terrible mother, why/when did she come back around, what was the second kid like, why did she want to fight so hard, what if anything did her testimony accomplish?

Well, well, well, it looks like even Mr. Bullitt "Even Tenet was a homerun shutup!" 68 has started hopping on the "Nolan can't write female characters!" train. Hmmm yes how very interesting hmmm yes.

After Tenet was released I thought of making some "Surely Bullitt68 can't fall in love with this film can he?" post in the SMD but look what that got me. Nothing but misery and confusion. I actually liked Oppenheimer more than Tenet but had even stronger suspicions of this -- basically for the reasons you outlined -- yet at this point was to shellshocked by Nolan fanboyism to venture a post.

But my biggest problem is that Nolan told the wrong story. He got WAY too bogged down in the proceedings

My impression of this film is that Nolan tried to weaponize proceedings like certain MMA fighters weaponize their cardio.

Make it so fast, so copious, so superabundant, so overwhelming that they're caught up in the pace of it all.

To echo what I wrote earlier in the thread, it's like Nolan wants you to be caught up in the rush of it all. Experience the journey as a long sensoary experience of interpersonal triumphs and defeats. Get enveloped in the same kind of compounding pressures and momentums that Oppenheimer was enmeshed in. I mean just look at the sheer breadth of characters involved in this film. There's a whole plethora of personas Oppenheimer needs to be involed with and have an relationship with.

Imo, this mitigates the weaker aspects of the film. Was Blunt's character uninteresting? Sure! Downey Jr's segments badly framed? Yup! But because of the speed the film was moving at their interludes were gone in three seconds and then the film proceeded to another storyline which hopefully was better.

But this "quantity is a quality all of its own" approach prevented the movie from really focusing and delving deeper into reaches it really needed to go. Make things more nuances and aspects better explored.

 

[RoastBeast]

If you guys are interested in nuclear stuff, check out this guy Kyle Hill's youtube. He has some goofy videos but he also has some insanely interesting ones where he really breaks things down into layman's terms.

 

[Bullitt68]

Well, well, well, it looks like even Mr. Bullitt "Even Tenet was a homerun shutup!" 68 has started hopping on the "Nolan can't write female characters!" train. Hmmm yes how very interesting hmmm yes.

After Tenet was released I thought of making some "Surely Bullitt68 can't fall in love with this film can he?" post in the SMD but look what that got me. Nothing but misery and confusion. I actually liked Oppenheimer more than Tenet but had even stronger suspicions of this -- basically for the reasons you outlined -- yet at this point was to shellshocked by Nolan fanboyism to venture a post.

Let's not get too crazy here. Oppenheimer being a dud hasn't made me start retroactively hating Nolan. He's still the best filmmaker to emerge in the 21st Century, Inception is still the best film of the 21st Century. I'm still a humongous fan. He just dropped the ball with this film.

To that end, I would never go so far as to say that Nolan can't write female characters. He absolutely can. His best female character is Rebecca Hall's character in The Prestige, while my favorite female character of his is Carrie-Anne Moss' character in Memento. Anyone who has a single bad word to say about those characters is an idiot, plain and simple. And then there's Hilary Swank in Insomnia, Marion Cotillard in Inception, Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar, and Elizabeth Debicki in Tenet. They're all interesting, well-written characters. His problems with Pugh and Blunt in Oppenheimer weren't that they're women, it's that he had this giant story he wanted to get a handle on and pretty much every structural decision he made was in my estimation wrong, which left enormous holes in character across the board, including with the two main female characters. In other words, his problems were this film problems, not Nolan problems.

And I fucking love Tenet. So far, it's the best film that I've seen of the 2020s.

My impression of this film is that Nolan tried to weaponize proceedings like certain MMA fighters weaponize their cardio.

Make it so fast, so copious, so superabundant, so overwhelming that they're caught up in the pace of it all.

To echo what I wrote earlier in the thread, it's like Nolan wants you to be caught up in the rush of it all. Experience the journey as a long sensoary experience of interpersonal triumphs and defeats. Get enveloped in the same kind of compounding pressures and momentums that Oppenheimer was enmeshed in. I mean just look at the sheer breadth of characters involved in this film. There's a whole plethora of personas Oppenheimer needs to be involed with and have an relationship with.

The only reason I'm inclined to disagree might just be my experience with the film, but I don't agree with this for the simple reason that I never felt any rush. I was never swept up in anything nor did I feel like Nolan was trying to ratchet up the pace. That's something I feel when I watch the Bourne films. The quick cuts, the constantly moving camera, the fast-paced dialogue, the sense of stakes and ticking clocks. Those are pacing decisions that make you feel from start to finish like you're running a race through the film. Nolan did that with Inception, he did it with Interstellar, and he did it with Dunkirk. Oppenheimer, by contrast, never gave me that sensation. If anything, it felt like the courtroom shit was slowing everything down, and at times the chronology jumping felt like Nolan was losing a handle on the film, not trying to put the pedal to the metal.

On the contrary, it felt like Nolan didn't know which story to put his dramatic/emotional emphasis on, and the result is a confused film. Are the courtroom scenes supposed to frame the real film, which is the development of the bomb and the aftermath, or are the courtroom scenes the real film, with the bomb shit as background filling in the dramatic/emotional gaps? It seemed to me like Nolan ultimately chose to place his emphasis on the courtroom shit, which I think was the wrong move. For one thing, he didn't do it very well - 12 Angry Men/A Few Good Men that shit most certainly was not - and for another thing, with the film being called Oppenheimer and ostensibly being about the man whose name is the title, the weird proportion of time and emotional investment in Downey Jr. was poorly set-up narratively and packed very little punch since I didn't actually care about him and was waiting to get back to Murphy.

Imo, this mitigates the weaker aspects of the film. Was Blunt's character uninteresting? Sure! Downey Jr's segments badly framed? Yup! But because of the speed the film was moving at their interludes were gone in three seconds and then the film proceeded to another storyline which hopefully was better.

Nah, this was miles away from my experience. It felt slow and bloated and that amplified every weakness in structure and character.

 

[mozfonky]

If you want to understand the why part, you need to understand just how high a priority it was for the US. Put it this way: No country has ever built a bomb as the US did over 80 years ago, despite technological advances and the advantage of prior knowledge and experience.

I'm sure they had real valid reasons, I don't question that. I know so little about it but I just don't get why they needed hundreds or thousands of civilians as a labor pool, the kind of folk who wouldn't know much more than I do about their objective. Were they just there busting rocks or something? For what amounted to a tub full of uranium? I watched the docu on hanford and the workers were just average civilians, and they had a high turnover rate just from the work conditions. The docu I saw really didn't discuss the work so much as the phenomenon of gathering people together in a very harsh environment in fairly poor living conditions. I kinda wonder what's at this place right now, maybe nothing but the abandoned buildings.

 

[avenue94]

I am unsure during WW2 how many countries could afford to build a nuclear weapon.

Pretty much no one else. As you pointed out, people just don't really grasp the industrial base the US worked from or what exactly you can accomplish with a wartime command economy.

I'm sure they had real valid reasons, I don't question that. I know so little about it but I just don't get why they needed hundreds or thousands of civilians as a labor pool, the kind of folk who wouldn't know much more than I do about their objective. Were they just there busting rocks or something? For what amounted to a tub full of uranium? I watched the docu on hanford and the workers were just average civilians, and they had a high turnover rate just from the work conditions. The docu I saw really didn't discuss the work so much as the phenomenon of gathering people together in a very harsh environment in fairly poor living conditions. I kinda wonder what's at this place right now, maybe nothing but the abandoned buildings.

It's not really that there was high turnover, it's more just atomic weapons were complete new. So that means you had to build out the supporting industrial base for new technologies. It wasn't just about building bombs, but building out viable mass production of them (think of a boutique handmade car versus developing a production line to make car after car).

If you want more an itemized breakdown, here's a chart from someone who studies US history on the matter. Most of the cost was essentially production and refining of the actual weapons material. As for why the huge civilian pool, a lot of the work would be pretty innocuous. Think of a factory producing piping, or teflon, etc. It's not really sensitive in a vacuum.

 

[Thrawn33]

Just got home from it.

7/10

Theater surprisingly (and frustratingly) full

Agree on the lack of focus with the three story arcs (Los Alamos, AEC hearing, appointment confirmation), I feel like the jumping between 3 time settings was botched.

The actors all did great, score and effects were cool...story was a mess.

Should've waited for streaming and enjoyed on the couch with cheap drinks in my underwear and the ability to pause and go piss.