"Oppenheimer" 2023. Biopic of "Father of the atomic bomb" J. Robert Oppenheimer. Written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Starring Cillian Murphy and an all-star cast and multiple cameo appearances: Kenneth Branagh, Matt Damon, Gary Oldman, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh and her girls, Robert Downey Jr, Rami Malek, Casey Affleck, Josh Harnett, Tom Conti, Jason Clarke, Tony Goldwyn, Matthew Modine, Benny Safdie, and Rin Tin Tin.

"Oppenheimer" is a pretentious film that tries too hard and leads with technique. For this viewer, the film's thudding emphasis on film-making technique, and its rejection of conventional storytelling, was alienating. I noticed how incredibly loud the movie is. It was like being at a rock concert. Some scenes are shot in black and white. Some scenes are shot in color. Each scene is very brief. Who characters are is entirely unclear. Narrative is broken up into bits, juggled, and disjointed. Scenes take place out of time sequence. The film covers Oppenheimer's life from when he was a grad student to his old age. I had no idea why Nolan played the film out of time sequence.

The all-star cast and multiple cameo performances drew a great deal of attention to themselves. That attention, in addition to the film's other technical emphases, completely made it impossible for me to experience any willing suspension of disbelief. I never for one second forgot that I was watching a movie written and directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy. I never for one second saw J. Robert Oppenheimer on screen. I saw actor and star Cillian Murphy, who has come a long way from "Red Eye," back in 2005. I kept thinking about Murphy's performance choices as an actor. He doesn't so much hand in three hours worth of acting; he hands in the same performance for three hours. Murphy always speaks in the same flat, monotonous voice. He displays virtually no facial expressions.

When Gary Oldman showed up in a cameo as Harry Truman all I could think was, "Which star is going to show up next? Kim Kardashian as Eleanor Roosevelt?" I recognized Kenneth Branagh but I had little idea of which historical figure he was playing and what significance that historical figure had to the plot. When Tony Goldwyn, in what may have been an extravagant wig, appeared onscreen, I just kept starring at his face thinking, "I know this actor but I can't place who he is."

Florence Pugh plays the part of a snotty and doomed woman who has an affair with Oppenheimer. Pugh is topless in a couple of scenes and bottomless in one more scene. Again, all I could think about while watching these scenes was "Boy, she really wants you to see her girls." I didn't care about any of the so-called "drama" onscreen. I never cared about the character she played, about the real life woman on whom this character was based, or Oppenheimer's affair with this woman. It was all flat, lifeless, something attempting to be drama, but never quite getting there. Oh, and then there was more NOISE.

Read the New York Times review of Oppenheimer. Manohla Dargis praises the film. All she talks about is technique. She talks about writer-director Christopher Nolan. She talks about Nolan's decisions as to how much atomic bomb horror to show onscreen. She talks about how LOUD the movie is. She talks about "complex structure" and "the plasticity of the film medium." "Superb cinematography." "65 millimeter film" "black and white film" Look, if you are fascinated by filmmaking technique, "Oppenheimer" is the film for you.

I would have walked out, but I was with another person, so I had to sit through three hours of utter boredom and, yes, contempt for this pretentious film. Nolan is struggling so hard to create a work of art that approaches the seriousness of the atomic bomb. For me, he failed. I cared less about nuclear annihilation after watching the movie than before I entered the theater.

A quieter, more intimate, more coherent, more old fashioned film could have moved me. Any number of incidents from Oppenheimer's life could have filled a two-hour film and ultimately said more about atomic weapons than this three hour exercise in noisy incoherence. Oppenheimer tried to murder his professor. That could have been a two-hour movie. Oppenheimer confronting the awesome task of developing a weapon capable of destroying the world. What Oppenheimer and others confronted in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Oppenheimer's marriage. Oppenheimer was a womanizer. He was a father who gave his children away when they annoyed him. He and his women liked to drink and smoke and they all seemed pretty lost. Focus on any one of these features could have made a moving film. Instead we get bombast, pretension, and a movie that never lets you forget who made it.