big bang

Oppenheimer explodes on grand scale with powerful characters and commanding lead performance

Writer/director Christopher Nolan loves to manipulate time in his movies, from the told-in-reverse Memento to the dream state in Inception to the time inversion in Tenet. Most of his films require a second or even third viewing to start to grasp exactly what he’s trying to say, much less the subtle nuances hidden within the complex storytelling.

Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

Matt Damon and Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer.

His latest trick/film, Oppenheimer, does plenty of hopping back and forth in time, but in the more conventional guise of a biopic. It’s a deep, three-hour dive into the complicated life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), considered to be the father of the atomic bomb. Over three hours, the audience is shown different periods of his life, including as a promising student, as a professor at Caltech, as the leader of the scientific team creating the atomic bomb in New Mexico, and his post-war life in which he would face scrutiny over his political beliefs and more.

The film is packed to the gills with characters, so densely that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of everyone and their relationships. Among the most important ones are Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty (Emily Blunt), with whom he has a strained relationship; Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), who leads the military component of the bomb project; and Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.), a colleague of Oppenheimer who led the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

This is Nolan’s first biopic, but he’s still true to his inimitable style, flitting around to the different eras of Oppenheimer’s life so often and so quickly that it takes a good hour to understand exactly when and where specific scenes are taking place. As with his previous films, he doesn’t bother to hold the audience’s hands, instead throwing character after character at them with abandon. And despite the fact that this leads to confusion over even the names of certain people, it’s done in such a manner that the overall tone of the film is what matters most.

In another filmmaker’s hands, the story might come off as dry and stodgy, but the pace with which the film is edited, as well as the propulsive score from Ludwig Göransson, gives it the feel of a thriller for much of its running time. The film is reminiscent of Oliver Stone’s JFK, with its re-evaluation of a historical moment, scenes involving government hearings, segments of the film being in black-and-white, and even a cameo by Gary Oldman as a very notable person.

The film does flag a bit in its final hour as it tackles Oppenheimer contemplating what he has wrought on the world, as well as his legacy. And despite Nolan using IMAX cameras to supposedly make the film a visual extravaganza, it’s unclear what purpose that served, as there are relatively few moments that pop, even the movie's signature moment (Full disclosure: The screening I attended was in 70 mm, not IMAX).

Murphy has more often than not played supporting characters in his career, but he commands every second he’s on screen here. He employs a unique not-quite monotone and straightforward delivery that keeps him riveting throughout. There are too many other actors to properly laud them all, but Damon, Downey, and Florence Pugh in a small-but-essential role are among the other standouts.

Oppenheimer is grand in scale, with an immense number of characters and storylines, but Nolan directs the film in such a way that it feels manageable as a viewer. The implications of the story are dire, but the filmgoing experience watching it transpire is anything but.

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Oppenheimer opens in theaters on July 21.

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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