The film falls flat for many, many reasons, both historical and aesthetic. The history is, well, problematic, to say the least, but that's hardly a Hollywood surprise; much worse off is that the writing is quite poor, the acting is in general pretty poor, and the film doesn't really know what it wants to be.
Is it a story about Oppenheimer and Groves? Is it a story about Los Alamos? Is it a story about working to make the Fat Man bomb? Is it a story about the morality of the bomb? Is it a story about John Cusak and Laura Dern smoochin'?
Maybe a truly epic film could be all of these things, but it isn't that epic and so it just feels like a fragmentary attempt at best, unwieldy and somewhat cheaply made. It would have been better, I think, to just throw the historical concerns out the window: make it an interesting plot, not a docudrama. As it is, it is really a pain to watch.
If you want to watch something on the atomic bomb with great acting, suspense, and plot, try Jon Else's documentary "The Day After Trinity." Whereas "Fat Man and Little Boy," leaves you feeling bored and let down, "The Day After Trinity" will leave you with a hushed awe.
It's too bad that this movie is so poor, it is certainly not for lack of interesting subject matter, but unfortunately there was no real artistic vision here, and that's really why it becomes a drama-historical hodgepodge, and a dull one at that.
Is it a story about Oppenheimer and Groves? Is it a story about Los Alamos? Is it a story about working to make the Fat Man bomb? Is it a story about the morality of the bomb? Is it a story about John Cusak and Laura Dern smoochin'?
Maybe a truly epic film could be all of these things, but it isn't that epic and so it just feels like a fragmentary attempt at best, unwieldy and somewhat cheaply made. It would have been better, I think, to just throw the historical concerns out the window: make it an interesting plot, not a docudrama. As it is, it is really a pain to watch.
If you want to watch something on the atomic bomb with great acting, suspense, and plot, try Jon Else's documentary "The Day After Trinity." Whereas "Fat Man and Little Boy," leaves you feeling bored and let down, "The Day After Trinity" will leave you with a hushed awe.
It's too bad that this movie is so poor, it is certainly not for lack of interesting subject matter, but unfortunately there was no real artistic vision here, and that's really why it becomes a drama-historical hodgepodge, and a dull one at that.