A mess movie#

MORE FROM FORBES 'Mission: Impossible' Sequel Tops $100+ Million Worldwide Today At Box Office By Mark Hughes And in certain moments - far too few and largely restricted to brief early scenes, as it turns out - the film takes on an expressionist, surrealist quality when giving us early glimpses into Oppenheimer’s fascination with quantum theory and its implications.

A mess movie#

Which would indeed have been a great story to tell, especially with hints that Nolan’s movie was a sort of “mad scientist” version of J. The marketing implies this is the story of the USA’s creation of the atomic bomb during World War II, and much mystery and buzz surrounds how Nolan depicts the eventual successful test of the atom bomb. Despite seemingly global and even cosmic themes, it winds up feeling decidedly contained and restricted, eyes cast downward, abandoning any visionary search for higher meaning behind the processes of science or politics. Oppenheimer is ambitious and includes many mesmerizing, often brilliant moments, but those moments cannot sustain themselves nor find common ground as a single compelling narrative or perspective. I suspect it will perform well in certain countries, far worse in others, and might not even screen in some markets.įor now, it’s hard for me to say where I think the results will wind up, because my reaction to Oppenheimer is different from most other critics, apparently. By Mark HughesĪ grade of A- is the hardest to parse here, as it could swing either way and would largely depend on how international audiences react to the picture. MORE FROM FORBES Critic Identifies The Secret Ingredients That Make Screenwriters Better Than A.I. A B+ grade will suggest weak support in its most enthusiastic viewers - opening weekend fans and those who show up because they were inspired by the buzz and marketing - and thus I’d expect a disappointing overall showing for the film at the end of its box office run.Īn A or A+ is what everyone involved in the picture most wants to hear, and would suggest a run similar perhaps to Nolan’s previous picture Dunkirk, another historic true story that earned widespread acclaim and is the filmmaker’s greatest achievement to date. The Cinemascore will tell us how audiences feel, and the combo of the two should paint a fairly clear picture at least for the short term. Luckily for Nolan and Universal Pictures, so far reviews are highly positive. If reviews are good, it needs at least very good audience word of mouth to overcome the portion of potential viewers who do care about buzz and reviews, who will show up at theaters this weekend and ask themselves, “What will I see? Hmm, which one is supposed to be good?” and recall what they heard from friends/family and what they saw on Rotten Tomatoes. If reviews are bad, it needs overwhelmingly great word of mouth to do better than just a respectable first wave of audiences on opening weekend. With a film this long and of this sort, everything relies heavily on word of mouth and reviews. At the moment, a flyweight fight between Tim Elliott and Muhammad Mokaev is the only bout that’s been made official for the card.So we’ll see whether Oppenheimer can please its target audience enough to earn good enough word of mouth to drive strong business and break into other demographics besides primarily middle-aged white men. Unfortunately, if his latest plea to face welterweight champion Leon Edwards is anything to judge by, his search for a top contender is not going well. UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev has been expecting to defend his title at UFC 294 as well. Unfortunately, it’s not just Chimaev and Costa that seem to be undergoing booking woes. Assuming he even makes it to the Octagon, the bout would mark the first time Chimaev has competed since defeating Kevin Holland in the desperately re-shuffled UFC 279 PPV after blowing his last cut to welterweight. If Chimaev is facing someone at UFC 294 it seems likely to be one of those two men. You are a bum now, I have a better opponent 🤣🤣🤣Īlongside the long teased fight against ‘Borrachinha’ Chimaev has spent the last few weeks chasing a bout against fomer welterweight champion Kamaru Usman.