Oppenheimer trades almost exclusively in tone and ginned-up interpersonal moments. Nolan doesn't give the scientific, military, or political context needed to tell any of those stories. He's not interested in engaging with the Manhattan Project even at a pop-sci level, instead various proper nouns are name-checked, but could be erased and replaced without changing the structure of Nolan's script, just like a Mad Lib. Characters are all constructed out of the standard tropes from every fiction/biopic about a troubled genius, Nolan has nothing new to add, the specifics of this story are just window dressing.

With 45 minutes left, Oppenheimer shifts gears and starts trying to be a courtroom drama, with twists and reveals and other twists, but it's all completely empty and unearned. Nolan didn't lay the groundwork in languid 2h15m build up, so he falls back on his Dunkirk trick of just having an incessant score constantly building for 30 minutes so that the audience knows they're supposed to feel dramatic tension, even when it's absent in the script.

Good performances from Murphy, Damon, and RDJ. Sub-par vfx.