Christopher Nolan takes on the well-trod ground of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life to draw an unmentioned parallel to the current-day discussion of artificial intelligence. In so doing, he creates a very competently made and ultimately frustratingly flawed film.

The parallel to current artificial intelligence discussion is a parallel that makes a lot of sense. It’s a powerful, dangerous emerging technology (though artificial intelligence, it should be noted, has been a much slower path). Many engaged in the creation of the technology itself, like Oppenheimer with his bomb, are discussing its destructive potential and urging caution in its face. There are older scientists (though seemingly mostly science fiction writers, really) who have already warned against the potential. There is even a parallel to be drawn to the distinction between the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb as similar to the distinction between expert system artificial intelligence and general artificial intelligence. The former of each pairing has great power both in useful and destructive ways, but the latter of each is orders of magnitude more powerful.

Oppenheimer serves as the film’s science hero and its voice of both optimism and caution. As soon as he realizes that fission is possible, Oppenheimer sees the potential for a bomb (so quickly that other brilliant physicists don’t see it until he tells them) and as soon as he is offered the position of running the lab that will make the bomb, he rationalizes that it will end war, because no one will be willing to use such a weapon once they realize what it can do. He also argues that as soon as the destructive power of these weapons is known, the superpowers of the world will be able to agree to halt their construction, since mutually assured annihilation is clearly a terrible result for everyone.

Seemingly unendingly optimistic, he makes the same argument repeatedly until confronted with the possibility of a hydrogen bomb. He dismisses that possibility for both scientific and moral reasons, finding the theory unsound and the destructive power of such a weapon so powerful that he considers it infeasible that it could be used for any kind of long-range good the way he believes his atomic weapons could be. He argues against the need for such a weapon–its deterrence factor would be no greater than what he has already built and is practical death tolls far higher for no gain. Meanwhile, the world’s superpowers do the opposite of what he hoped in the wake of the bombs being dropped: they proliferate and expand their nuclear weapons systems in competition with one another. Oppenheimer attempts to wield his position of public trust to influence political leaders, but once he has given them their bomb, they have no use for him.

This is a heady, difficult argument to play out on film, and results in a first hour that feels like it’s trying to set some record for speed running nuclear research history. It’s more than enough material to fill a film (even a three-hour film) and so complex that it’s almost reasonable for a film not to take a stance so much as just say, “Hey, this is complicated!”

However, the problem is that Nolan’s film is also very interested in a decades-long feud between Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss. Strauss and Oppenheimer were two Jewish east coast elites with a lot of similar interests who were nonetheless ideological opposites in seemingly every possible way, which led to friction when the politically-ambitious, self-taught Strauss ended up battling the physicist Oppenheimer over nuclear weapons policy in the 1940s and beyond. Eventually, Strauss organized a kangaroo court hearing to deny Oppenheimer the renewal of his security clearance, a move that would strip Oppenheimer of what policymaking influence he once had and leave him marooned in an island of his own conscience for the last 13 years of his life. Strauss received a comeuppance when the scientific community rallied to convince the Senate to deny him a cabinet position in 1958, but that comeuppance merely served to put him in the same position as Oppenheimer, but without seemingly the guilt that the scientist felt. And we just spend a huge amount of time on this feud, much of it told by Strauss. We would have been better off with most of that material on the cutting room floor.

Admittedly, the Oppenheimer-Strauss feud is actually a fascinating story unto itself, and one that could fit a lot of themes (including the themes surrounded self-identity that have so often characterized Nolan’s other work), but it’s difficult to see what it represents in the modern context in which Nolan asks us to take his work. He was always in favor of research and the continued advancement of nuclear science but his hawkish, conservative views put him on the other side of the H-bomb debate from Oppenheimer and indeed on a completely different continent as a person. It’s the personal distaste that Nolan seems interested in, as he gives Strauss the chance to attack Oppenheimer for a personal failing that his wife accused him of far more effectively: playing the martyr. He further draws attention to their religious conflict, with Oppenheimer having essentially turned his back on his born religion while Strauss’s views were forever attached to it. But these ideas get precious little exploration in a film that’s already overwrought with its ideas.

It’s an intricate and complex theme that Nolan wants to present, and so he and Hoyte Van Hoytema lean into the complexity, intercutting among various timeframes and shots of the stars and universe that Oppenheimer was so instrumental in humans taking so much control over. They find ways to give each time period its own distinct look in order to help the viewers orient themselves even as we jump around the timeline, a necessary move given the intricacies involved. We have black and white for the post-bomb ’50s. We have a warm, amber color with lots of darkness in the pre-Los Alamos ’30s and ’40s. We have a cold, detached, starkly clear Cambridge. All of this visual work is helpful for the structure Nolan has given his film, though one wonders why he insisted on such a structure. Editor Jennifer Lame surely also had her work cut out for her with this structure, as well.

Throughout the film, the acting is superb. Cillian Murphy is unrecognizable in the best possible way as Oppenheimer and conveys every bit of the gravitas and intellectual heft that made Oppenheimer a successful purveyor of science in his time. He is not conventionally charismatic, but there is a great charm to how deeply he seems to think and feel about issues, a quality that’s difficult to portray well but absolutely comes out from Murphy. Robert Downey Jr. has some mustache-twirling moments, but they’re appropriate to a script that clearly (and probably rightly) has contempt for his character. When we are watching his retelling of events and therefore seeing things more from his perspective, he comes across as eminently reasonable and thoughtful, even if it’s clear how highly he regards himself. Emily Blunt has a sort of coldness and intelligence that makes Kitty seem absolutely tough as nails and absolutely inscrutable at the same time. The other parts are small but universally well done.

The score from Ludwig Göransson is fantastic as well. He eschews drums entirely, which gives everything a bit of an unusual feel and sense of timing. There are some moments when the score may be a bit loud, but I think it’s that the score was physically loud rather than that it was too busy for its purpose.

In a way, Oppenheimer is the most frustrating kind of film. It’s technically great. It’s wonderfully ambitious. It has few clear flaws. But it has one enormous flaw in that it just tries to say too much and so forgets to finish saying anything. Emblematic of what’s keeps this film from being what it could be, the final moments of the film are an exchange between Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein that should by any rights be its final definitive statement, but they feel so disconnected from anything that has been happening for the last 30-40 minutes of the film that they feel more like an indictment of a selfish politician than a statement of purpose:
Oppenheimer: “When I came to you with those calculations, we thought we might start a chain reaction that would destroy the entire world.”
Einstein: “I remember it well. What of it?”
Oppenheimer: “I believe we did.”
Einstein walks away in disgust and ignores Strauss, who sets his sights against Oppenheimer for good. It’s not treated like the final words of a scientific and ethical argument the way it should be–saying that the genie is out of the bottle earlier than we can imagine and that we shouldn’t have opened it. It’s treated like a personal sleight and a revelation that Strauss is an egomaniac. (Yeah, a financial mogul/politician is an egomaniac. Shocking.)

I cannot, in good conscience, claim either that Oppenheimer so doesn’t live up to its hype that it’s worth missing or that it’s so good that it’s worth seeing. It’s a good film with one frustrating major flaw that undermines a good deal of it. You’re not going to find a major Hollywood film in 2023 that does a better job than this one. But it’s just not as good as it could or maybe even should be.