Are you one of the few people who hasn’t yet gotten in on the “Barbenheimer” experience?
Well, there is still plenty of time to catch two of the biggest films of the decade so far in Greta Gerwig’s fantastical comedy Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s historical drama Oppenheimer.
There’s also a really stunning Mission: Impossible film that’s still playing in theaters, one that sees Tom Cruise continuing to defy the laws of physics to entertain audiences.
If we reworked our list of the 10 best movies of 2023 (so far), all three of these films would earn a spot. They’re all that good.
Oppenheimer
This is an urgent, blistering work of fire-and-brimstone, as relentless and awing as anything Christopher Nolan has made in his career. It’s one of his best films, and I say that as someone who holds basically most all of his filmography as sacred ground.
It’s a very sobering watch, as the film feels to tell us very bluntly our global demise is all but assured if we do not change our ways and hold our technological advancements at bay, lest we fall victim to them. It feels like a very direct commentary on the pending AI revolution, one that’s as uneasy and unforeseen as any we’ve ever undergone as a species. However, the film has no trouble reminding us that we’ve got plenty of doomsdays at our disposal already in case we’ve forgotten.
Of course, Nolan nails the grandeur and terror of the Trinity test, one of the most accomplished sequences of his career. Cillian Murphy shoulders the three-hour tragedy in his gaze and his posture, a man who sees the end and still thinks he can get around it by walking straight into the calamity. It’s a gigantic performance, and he’s flanked by so many great supporting turns that it becomes hard to list all of them. Special kudos go to Robert Downey Jr., who finally sheds the iron and reminds us why he’s such a dangerous actor when given the right role and the perfect amount of space to roam in.
Ludwig Göransson and Hoyte van Hoytema do expectedly brilliant work, but it’s Jennifer Lame who cements herself as a master editor with perhaps Nolan’s best-cut film since Inception. I didn’t ever think he’d be able to fully replace Lee Smith, but Lame is two-for-two after this and Tenet.
It’s clear Nolan has a lot on his mind about what’s coming for us, matching a race-against-the-clock spectacle like Tenet with a real-world devastation like Oppenheimer. This is his finest hour as a filmmaker on a purely schematic level, as he’s operating in a space that few, if any, can at his level of the art. As an emotional journey, you’ll find yourself drained and hopeless, searching for a silver lining on a globe set ablaze by its own hubris. Oppenheimer saw it, Nolan saw it and now we see it in all of its horrifying glory. It’s the most vital use of 70MM IMAX so far of his career, showing us in full display how the bomb came to be and how its creators seem destined to repeat the failures of yesterday on a quest to claim tomorrow.
Is there optimism here? I hope so, if only because all of Nolan’s films try to look for the light in some way. Maybe it’s that it’s not too late, that we can still tell stories that warn us of what came before us. Maybe it’s that we’re still here, and that the ultimate probability of the unstoppable chaos theory has yet to reach our doorstep. Maybe it’s because the world can’t fully end by human’s hand when so much progress is cut down by such petty governance before it’s too late, that our faults as a species keep us from ultimately succeeding to push that doomsday clock hand to midnight.
All the same, this is a towering work. It will take another viewing to capture all the history in a bottle, to soak in the melancholy of Murphy’s astounding meltdown from paranoid promise to remorseful resignation. The majesty of the Trinity test fades so quickly to bureaucratic betrayal, as Oppenheimer’s willful ignorance in the name of vain discovery leads to a world bound captive by the waking nightmares of his troubled brilliance.
This is a somber film, utterly rapt by its own destructions and spooked by its own rallying cry. It’s also one of the defining films of the century, and we’re not in a good spot if we don’t heed the warning of Oppenheimer’s story like gospel. This is a monumental achievement in filmmaking in so many ways, and my gosh, is that satisfying as a die-hard fan of Nolan’s.
However, it’s also an earthquake of discomfort, one showing a world hurling to the brink of disaster if we don’t get our acts together and find ways to deal with what’s coming in the future. The great films are ones you can’t shake, and I’ll be haunted by this ending for the rest of my life. It’s such high praise and such cinematic beauty, but it doesn’t make going to sleep any easier.
Barbie
You have to be amazed that Mattel let Greta Gerwig get away with that, but blessings to the toy people for looking the other way.
This is absolutely sensational, and anyone who can’t vibe with the sharp, empathetic commentary here has got to grow up. This really is one of the best IP films ever.
Barbie is brilliant because it literally can’t exist without being a very specific movie about a very specific toy, and it does for Barbie what Phil Lord and Chris Miller did for Lego. If you take the right approach, you can make a great movie out of anything, apparently!
It’s exhilarating that this is a mega blockbuster smash: this is everything most IP films aren’t. This will spark the toy-to-film wave, and I’m sure most of it will stink. I’m so glad this exists as it does though. It feels genuinely impossible to replicate.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
On one hand, this is as technically magnificent and full-stop entertaining as it’s been billed. Tom Cruise and Chris McQuarrie just have the visual language for these films perfected by now, as you can tell they both feel fierce devotion to pushing every single limit for what stunts won’t get Cruise in trouble if he attempts them.
These films are just so precise now and genuinely stunning in their ability to ratchet up tension. I like to think Cruise and McQuarrie marathon a few Buster Keaton movies and North by Northwest before every shoot and just go to work, if only because they’re reaching for the same operatic heights of Alfred Hitchcock with the booming melodrama, the running-as-VFX and breathless imagination of the very realistic dangers that Ethan Hurt always gets out of every movie. These films need those event-level moments that get you excited about the possibilities of the medium, and this has those. It’s a tremendous example of why these movies work so well and why they don’t slow down.
However, the Entity and all the AI paranoia smacks of 90s internet-age hand-wringing. AI is a deeply uncomfortable thing for a variety of reasons, but trying to hem so closely to the headlines takes away from the timelessness of these movies. The tech always ages, but going so hard in on the *now* feels a little forced. It’s not that social relevance is a hindrance to a villain, but the main bad guy in this is basically a lackey for a floating, sentient computer circle.
It’s the same AI hook that’s been used for decades. There’s one pivotal standoff in Venice that’s supposed to communicate the gravity of the film’s threat, but it’s undermined intellectually by how… silly the idea of the Entity is. It’s a gimmicky way to try and provoke relevant fears, but it doesn’t fit a Mission: Impossible movie. Impossible is one thing, but implausible is another.
However, it’s a testament to how great this movie is that such a ridiculous central hook can go down so easy because of the mastery behind the camera and the dedication Cruise puts into making these films as good as they can be. I don’t think he’s solely to thank for “saving movies,” but I do think he operates in a vital space where he can use his immeasurable clout to make cool stuff. That’s what we need him to do.
Even if this film might play in 10 years like a Y2K thriller would’ve played in 1997, the set pieces will endure. With any other franchise, the Entity is a dealbreaker. With M:I, it’s background noise for the main attraction. I’ll remember the train sequence, the cliff jump, the airport run, the Fiat chase and the Eugene Kittridge of it all more than I’ll remember whatever the heck is going on with the evil McGuffin.
