The Trinity Test is the centrepiece, and what a magnificent, wholly cinematic build-up and pay-off it is, pure controlled mayhem in its visuals and sound.
The rest? I was bored shitless. Most vexing, and this includes seeing the bumbling Tom Conti as Albert Einstein and Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman in two of their most cringe performances to date, was the unbearable reliance on appointment hearings and that security clearance interview, and the incessant cutting back and forth, an overlong spy-chasing vignette which I found mostly tiresome. We all know politicians are vile; there’s nothing especially innovative in showing us all over again.
I craved more spectacle as well as insight into how this deadly weapon was actually made, that and a longing for a Terrence Malick approach to the material. It was so talky but with no memorable dialogue, and I got a bit sick of it – I was genuinely disappointed. As for the eponymous protagonist, I simply found him boring, and every time the camera lingered perversely on his sunken cheekbones a sense of resigned ennui is how I would describe the atmosphere.
A stunning technical achievement though it all is, I didn’t find it particularly revelatory, and I won’t be watching it again.
It also didn’t help matters that I was sadly sat beside a large, rather whiffy individual who breathed like an asthmatic hippo, ate like a gannet, and decided to take his shoes and socks off. I had to endure this for almost three hours.
This is why I rarely go to the cinema.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 