Film Review - Oppenheimer (2023)

Oppenheimer is the new movie by Christopher Nolan and stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer who invented the Atomic Bomb and was later accused of being a Communist.

Oppenheimer was one of my most anticipated of the year mainly due to Christopher Nolan who’s last 2 films Dunkirk and Tenet are not only my favourite films he’s made but also topped my favourites lists of their respective release years but could be build on those and get that 3 peat favourites win or was this bomb to be a dud like Sideshow Bob’s when he went for that retro 50s charm.

Well so far Oppenheimer is my movie of the year but this year is far from over movie wise and Dune Part 2: Long Live the Fighters is still to come but this movie is a terrific one by Nolan and he manages to take a very familiar story especially if you’ve seen the Hunt for Red October and make something gripping and terrifying out of it.

Firstly I have to talk about the use of sound design in this movie the times where the bomb is shown and referenced you feel in your bones and at one point I was literally on the edge of my seat and then wanting to duck and cover under it as I felt this terror envelope me from head to toe and this feeling of absolute dread of “What have we done” rattle in my brain.

And its gripping in the sense that you feel both the personal and global stakes of this race to acquire this deadly weapon and what it could do to those who made it as well as the human race as a whole and Cillian Murphy finally gets to lead a Nolan film and he doesn’t disappoint playing the man as someone who was a radical and a genius and then a haunted soul living with the consequences of his invention as well as the treatment his country gave him as thanks.

Also extremely good is Robert Downey Jr and it is as much his movie as it is Murphy’s and these 2 men and their performances highlight what I feel Nolan does so well with this movie and that is that this is as much about humanity as it is about history (and it does that very well also) and what we can do to ourselves both on a global nuclear scale as well as personally where we can rub someone the wrong way or feel that for whatever reason we don’t like them or are somewhat jealous of what they’ve achieved either in their own life or in service to their country.

If I have one criticism of this movie it’s that it’s a little long at 3 hours and towards the end I was checking my watch on a few occasions and getting the message from my bottom that its sat in this cinema seat long enough.

And so that was Oppenheimer and it’s a terrific film by Christopher Nolan who continues his post Interstellar winning streak and hopefully next time he’ll base his next movie on the Red Dwarf episode White Hole much like Tenet did the Backwards world like the Boys from the Dwarf did, 4 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Barbie (2023)

Barbie is based off of the Mattel toy and is directed by Greta Gerwig and co-written by her and Noah Baumbach and stars Margot Robbie as what she calls Stereotypical Barbie who lives in her dream house, has big parties and is the focus of attention of Ken (Ryan Gosling) but when thoughts of Death come into her mind she is told by Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) to go into the Real World and find the person who plays with her and fix it.

Barbie was a movie I was curious about mainly because I love Gerwig as a director, I loved 2017’s Lady Bird and adored 2019’s Little Women but the previews for this movie were all over the place and I thought to myself This will either be terrific fun and Gerwig has done it again or it would be a near total disaster like Lightyear was last year where I sat there and thought “Who is this For?”

Well it is neither of those sadly but it is still good enough and I enjoyed myself enough to feel positive about this movie for the most part, Robbie is the best she’s been in what feels like a very long time here after 3 very high profile misfires in Birds of Prey (which she also produced as well as this movie), Amsterdam and Babylon the latter 2 of which I felt had interesting elements to them but on the whole weren’t great but here she’s lively, energetic, warm, funny as well as emotional and all of it works very well.

And I actually enjoyed Ryan Gosling for once in a movie and he is someone I have barely liked in movies save for 2016’s The Nice Guys but here like with Laura Dern and Emma Watson in Little Women Gerwig actually directs him like a human being instead of a human equivalent of the Living Statue where in so many roles he just either sat there or stood there and stared into the camera or stared off into space and I got so sick of it even in movies like First Man which I really liked he did it there but here he’s very charismatic and lively and has a lot of great moments as does Simu Liu my favourite Ken plus Michael Cera and America Ferrara who is very good as a Mattel executive with a moody daughter of her own.

But this movie as fun as it is doesn’t quite come together I feel to make it as satisfying in terms of its focus and storytelling that I felt Lady Bird and Little Women had and a lot of this comes down to the ending which I didn’t love now I did love seeing that person again in a movie but their scenes didn’t quite work for me and they felt a little jarring with the “come on Barbie let’s go party” feel the film was going for at times.

And also Will Ferrell as the head of Mattel was okay but really deep down was only doing a riff on his much better Lord/President Business character from the Lego Movie in 2014 as well as not really having an awful lot to do apart from run around comedically and react to the strange goings on around him.

And so that was Barbie and its fun enough that I recommend it but I don’t feel it sticks the landing well but Gerwig has yet to make a bad film and I hope she continues for a long time to come as I’ll be there every time, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning: Part One (2023)

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One is the newest MI film and once again Christopher McQuarrie returns to direct and co-write the script, this time the IMF is up again a mysterious program known as The Entity, an AI program that has become rogue and various groups want to control it as it has the power to control anything it touches but Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team (Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson and Ving Rhames) want to find it so they can destroy it.

Dead Reckoning Part One is my favourite MI film after 2015’s Rogue Nation which is still my favourite of this series and the reason I feel this is the case is that this movie has a much better sense of storytelling than 2018’s entry Fallout did where I felt half of the script was the characters saying “I’m Working On It” or a variation of that theme whereas here this has much more of the danger and intrigue that Rogue Nation had and while this is only Part One this felt satisfying and not too long despite its 163 minute runtime.

Also this movie has some fun action sequences the highlight being the climax on board the Orient Express which is tense and exciting and full of surprises as it plays out, there are also some very good hand to hand fights with knives and fists that are also exciting to watch and McQuarrie has gotten better at directing action since Rogue Nation where he hadn’t quite gotten a handle on that kind of thing yet but hey these things take time to learn.

And lastly the film has 2 excellent newcomers to the cast in Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff and they bring a real breath of fresh air to a series that now risks becoming stale despite its excellent quality film wise (only 2000’s Mission Impossible 2 is a dud here), Atwell is very charming as this thief character Grace and she displays a lightness of touch that is good to watch while Klementieff as a cold assassin makes the most of her limited role and is a big part of the hand to hand fight scenes and why their so memorable.

But I’m now starting to feel that after Part 2 of Dead Reckoning opens next year that it might be time for Christopher McQuarrie to vacate the directors chair for a film or 2 don’t get me wrong his partnership with Cruise which began with Bryan Singer’s 2008 film Valkyrie has been hugely beneficial for both men but he’s done 4 of these films by the time the Dead Reckoning story is fully finished and after seeing what Joseph Kosinski did with Top Gun Maverick last year I’d like to see him get a chance to direct an MI film.

And so that was Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One and it’s a very fun time at the cinema even if the series as a whole could do with some new blood once Part 2 is finished, 3 and a half out of 5.