‘Oppenheimer’ review: Christopher Nolan’s explosive, must-see movie

Director Christopher Nolan’s seismic “Oppenheimer” is that rarest of things: a sophisticated and bracing movie that’s made for adults and makes nobody say, “I’ll wait till it’s on streaming.” 

See it in IMAX on 70-millimeter film — you’ll be very glad you did.

Many unbelievable scenes fill the entire screen.

Only the brilliant mind behind “Memento,” “Inception” and the “Dark Knight” trilogy would conclude that a biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, could be both a morally complex, informative, gripping drama and a mind-blowing visual feast.

Nolan pulls off the mash-up in characteristically unexpected ways. 

Of course, we anticipate that the first-ever nuclear bomb test, outside Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1945, will justify the movie’s massive scale. And that paralyzing scene definitely does. But “Oppenheimer” is explosive well before and well after the actual explosion. 

What keeps all three hours of the film so breathlessly tense is the title physicist’s internal tug of war: Can the valiant quest for scientific advancement — his great passion — lead to the total destruction of the planet? 

And is he culpable for whatever happens, as the leader of the team who created the A-bomb over three years in secret in the Southwest? Or is it the person who decides to push the button, a k a the leader of the free world?

“Just because we’re building it doesn’t mean we get to decide how it’s used,” he tells his frightened colleagues rather unconvincingly.

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As the chilly man considers these thorny questions — and also has moments of euphoric inspiration — Nolan throws in loud images from Oppenheimer’s mind, of atoms violently splitting, or of flames engulfing the screen.

The cacophony shown inside Oppenheimer’s head fascinatingly clashes with Murphy’s outwardly stoic, privately vulnerable performance. He mesmerizingly journeys from intellectual force of nature to a guilt-plagued, damaged shadow of a man.

Oppenheimer was a fascinating guy, as geniuses often are.

“You’re a dilettante, womanizer and suspected Communist!” says Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves (Matt Damon, a smart foil), the military director of the Manhattan Project. 

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Like many of those on college campuses in the first half of the 20th century, Oppenheimer socialized with socialists, and the government attempted to use his past against him when he became outspoken against the hydrogen bomb after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that climaxed World War II.

Throughout the movie, we jump in and out of the infamous, behind-closed-doors kangaroo court to decide if he was a Communist who had been disloyal to the United States. 

Another part of the film, the relevance of which becomes clear in the end, involves the Senate confirmation hearing of Lewis Strauss to become President Eisenhower’s Secretary of Commerce, shot in time-machine black and white. Playing the ambitious man who once served as chair of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Robert Downey Jr. sneakily does some of the best work of his career.  

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Even history buffs who know every beat of what happened will be riveted by the inventive ways Nolan recounts it. 

But what separates the director from most of his fellow auteurs nowadays is he knows vision alone cannot make a great movie — you need terrific performances to carry it out. And every supporting turn here is a smash.

Emily Blunt is focused and biting as Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty, who’s fiercely supportive even though he gives her plenty of reasons not to be, such as his Commie ex Jean, played with frayed wires by Florence Pugh. 

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It speaks to the caliber of this cast that there’s not enough room to praise the excellent Kenneth Branagh, Casey Affleck and Rami Malek, all of whom make a porterhouse out of a slice of roast beef.

The movie also marks a welcome return to form for its director, whose “Tenet” was, well, “Tenet.”

The three-hour runtime will scare off some people (even though that’s breezy these days if you’re James Cameron or Martin Scorsese), but the subject matter and artfulness of Nolan’s approach earn our attention every single second. 

“Oppenheimer” is a movie that makes you say “Oh, my God” over and over again — in awe and in terror. 

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