OPPENHEIMER (in theatres)

OPPENHEIMER: unequivocally one of the preeminent and possibly the greatest film ever created; a sensational marvel, from commencement to conclusion; director Christopher Nolan secure in his innovative, proven genius captures awe-inspiring heights, sights and sounds beyond comprehension, actors at their pinnacle: Cillian Murphy is today’s epochal method actor, donning the anatomical, psychological, intellectual might of atomic designer J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967); focusing on his advocacy of the “Bhagavad Gita”, “Now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Oppenheimer’s humanity, hubris, and goal of melding technology and mankind reverberate at the core of the film. Robert Downey Jr. gives a stratospheric depiction of Oppenheimer’s nemesis, an insecure and envious Lewis Strauss. Matt Damen, predictably perfect as Leslie Groves, Brigadier General, director of the Manhattan Project and Oppenheimer’s procurer. Female roles, though minimally delineated, were pivotal in Oppenheimer’s personal development: Florence Pugh with assured grit is psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, the passion of his life, a communist; keenly displays her tortured, discordant soul. Emily Blunt deserved more screen time as the alcoholic, frustrated biologist, neurotic wife, Kitty, wallowing in self-pity, her role as brainy confident shrouded by nicotine and whiskey.

Electrifying, redolent, technological wizardry, virtuosity saturates the explosive scenes; sound eerily following the blazing inferno of light; cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (“Tenet”, “Dunkirk”) overpowers his previous executions; rarely has such profundity been visited upon the screen.

Throbbing throughout “Oppenheimer” is present day baffling, disturbing, undeniably edifying feats of Artificial Intelligence; forecasting its possible elimination of the “man behind the machine”; again, words of the “Bhagavad Gita” resonate: “we behold what we are, and we are what we behold”. Presciently haunting, in forging our future course.

FIVE STARS!!!!!

Peneflix