First ‘Oppenheimer’ Reactions Call It “Incredible,” “Fearsome,” and “Spectacular”

The clock is ticking for humanity itself in Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer, his latest film — and first reactions are declaring the film one of Nolan’s most impressive works yet, as well as a “spectacular achievement” in its “audacity” following its world premiere event in Paris, France earlier today. One such example comes from The Los Angeles Times writer Kenneth Turan, who declared the film as “one of the deepest character dives in recent American cinema”.

The latest epic from Nolan stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist who was responsible for the design of the very first weapons of mass destruction during the Second World War. As the director of the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos Laboratory, where the weapons were first developed, Oppenheimer would go on to question his own involvement over the power and destruction his weapons caused, while the following years saw him tailed relentlessly by the U.S. Government, who were investigating his associations with the Communist Party.

The movie is the fifth collaboration between the Irish actor and the auteur after the Dark Knight trilogy, Dunkirk and Inception, although this is the first time he is taking on the role of the leading man for the director, and he’s given backup from an eye-watering caliber of actors in the form of the supporting cast.

RELATED: ‘Oppenheimer’ Director Christopher Nolan Reveals His New IMAX Film Invention

‘Oppenheimer’ Is a “Stunning” and “Epic Historical Drama”

Collider’s Editor-in-Chief Steve Weintraub called the movie incredible and urges audiences to see it in IMAX 70mm, praising the brilliant performances and Hoyte van Hoytema and Nolan’s work behind the camera.

Matt Maytum, the deputy editor of Total Film claimed the film left him “stunned”, noting that the film contains a “sublime central performance by Cillian Murphy”, while Associated Press film writer Lindsey Bahr described the movie as “a spectacular achievement in its truthful, concise adaptation, inventive storytelling and nuanced performances from Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon and the many, many others involved.”

The Sunday Times’ Jonathan Dean also loved the film, and noted that the supporting cast almost steal the show, while he also labels it “audacious and inventive”. Robbie Collin, of The Telegraph, described the film as a “total knockout that split my brain open.”

Vulture writer Bilge Ebiri said the film was “incredible” and “fearsome”, adding that Nolan “brings the hammer down” on the film, while Variety’s senior international film editor Elsa Keslassy observed that audiences stayed long after the film to discuss what they’d just witnessed. Producer and journalist Simon Thompson praised the “rich ensemble cast” and called the film “Nolan’s haunting opus.”

Who Fills Out the All-Star Cast of ‘Oppenheimer’?

Emily Blunt plays his wife, Kitty, while also joining the cast are Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, and Gary Oldman. Robert Downey Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, chairman of the US Atomic Enemy Commission, who may end up being the primary antagonist of the film.

The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. Nolan has both adapted the screenplay and produced the film himself. Speaking to Variety last year, Murphy described his process of preparing for the role by revealing that he “prepped by doing an awful lot of reading. I’m interested in the man and what [inventing the atomic bomb] does to the individual. The mechanics of it, that’s not really for me — I don’t have the intellectual capability to understand them, but these contradictory characters are fascinating.”

Nolan has previously revealed that he had worked alongside Hoyte van Hoytema, his trusted cinematographer, with whom he has worked since Interstellar, to come up with a new method of filming. The director had settled on shooting large portions of his film in monochrome black-and-white. However, that had never actually been done on IMAX properly without just digitally altering the image in post-production. So the pair went to Kodak to invent a way out of their problem.

“So we challenged the people at Kodak photochem to make this work for us,” said Nolan to Total Film. “And they stepped up. For the first time ever, we were able to shoot IMAX film in black-and-white. And the results were thrilling and extraordinary. As soon as Hoyte and I saw the first tests come in, we just knew that this was a format that we were immediately in love with.”

Oppenheimer opens in theaters on July 21, 2023.