Barbie vs Oppenheimer: So, who won? Finding the Ultimate Winner!

Oppenheimer always has three parallel scenes at a time: the present and the two different hearings. This can be boiled down to two similar sets, but the hearings being added throughout greatly benefit the movie. It keeps the objective clearly stated and is a natural form of exposition. A lot of conflicts are introduced via the briefings. And including these scenes throughout the movie alleviates the third act because the briefings take center stage and eventually reach a climax. Going back to my point about how this energizes the story, the characters in the briefings highlight the most significant struggles and prop them up as behemoth challenges for Oppenheimer to overcome. Their severe and dire tone gives the rest of the story mass stakes because we want Oppenheimer to succeed. He has to overcome so much, which fundamentally shatters his character. Watching his entire arc play out from being an enthusiastic and curious scientist to a warn-down husk drained of all life is magnificent. This was the one aspect I was interested to know Christopher Nolan could achieve, given that his last movie had some bland characters. But the writing is excellent here, and Cillian Murphy's performance is even better. You always feel his anxiety bleed through the big IMAX frame, and there are so many moments in which Christopher allows Cillian to convey his emotions through his highly detailed expressions. Scenes in which he's questioning his past decisions and is being drowned by dread are stellar. There's also something that Christopher does that elevates this when Cillian starts to panic, like the room slowly beginning to rumble as if there's an imminent shockwave approaching. Many people say that Cillian delivers an Oscar-worthy performance, and I agree with them. He easily carries the movie; the same can be said about every other actor with screen time. Matt Damon has some delicious charisma, and his banter and relationship with Oppenheimer are so much fun to watch. 

When so many characters are fundamentally against Oppenheimer, it makes his allies that much better because they relieve some of the massive weight on Oppenheimer's shoulders. Robert Downey Jr. also turns in an excellent performance, which isn't surprising. The man is a talented actor, and the fact that he was questioned due to his long duration playing Iron Man is silly. Then every other character is spread pretty thin, given how massive the cast is. One character I thought we'd see much more of that was pushed aside was Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer's wife. I find her attractive because she'd have the most personal connection with Oppenheimer. We could see his vulnerability around her, and they could have discussed more doubts and things he fears. But we only get a little of that, and she mostly feels like a background character. Throughout the movie, she has one scene where she's actually featured, which is perfect. The rest of the supporting cast is solid, and there are still A-list actors that weren't announced, which came as a surprise. I'm not spoiling any of them, but given how massive the cast already is, it was a major shock to me to see even more A-listers show up. The movie's budget is 100 million dollars, so most of these actors are taking a significant pay cut to show up in a Christopher Nolan movie.

Moving away from the actors, I want to go into the technical side of the film. And the best part of that is Ludwig Göransson's score. Given how excellent his work on Tenet was, I didn't doubt him in the slightest. Still, he does a stellar job on Oppenheimer and is the glue that holds the whole movie together. His score keeps the tension taught and gives the story a grander and epic feel. The film always feels like there's a sense of urgency, and that's emphasized through the music. It's constantly motivating and carrying the hustle of the plot. It helps the audience stay engaged and never lets your nerves settle. I genuinely wouldn't blame anyone who started sweating in the theater because the marrying of the music and the fast pace keeps you in a constant state of alertness. Another technical aspect that was going to be good is Hoyte Van Hoytema's cinematography. The man has been on a roll lately with films like Dunkirk, Tenet, and Nope. He makes anything look cinematic, transforming this dry terrain into a visual feast. His images are so crisp, the composition is excellent, and the overall color grade makes the film look appetizing. Some of the cinematography may be simple at times, where it's a low depth of field shot of Cillian's face, but even that looks amazing. The music and visuals are genuinely top-notch for this film. For the sound, intercutting brief shots of explosions and atoms whirring around that cause a deep bassy rumble that shakes your seats always felt beautiful in the theater. I loved how they used those brief shots at the beginning of the film, allowing us to enter Oppenheimer's mind to see what he was visualizing. That first scene was essentially a montage, and I think it worked well and was a great introduction. There is one minor aspect of the sound that felt inconsistent at times, which was inaudible dialogue. Christopher Nolan has a bad reputation regarding this, like Tenet requiring subtitles to understand, but Oppenheimer isn't as wrong. At times, some characters can be hard to understand. I usually found Robert Downey Jr. as Strauss when they quickly talked during hearings. Going into another gripe I had with the movie, there's one negative side effect to the movie's constant fast pace. On the one hand, some scenes benefit from this; on the other, some scenes lose out on some of the more detailed moments of the story that need more time to breathe. Upon completion of the movie, I realized that some of my favorite scenes were the ones that took their time and allowed the drama to build more naturally and pay off satisfyingly. 

The pace is so fast that the setting changes in less than a minute. It becomes hard to distinguish between scenes because the dialogue is like one long sentence shared by multiple characters in different settings. In a way, I'm starting to read bullet points from how fast the story moves because we physically don't have enough time within the script to slow down. It's already 3 hours long. I'd genuinely be curious to see how long the hand is due to how much dialogue there is and how frequently the setting changes. So, to me, this raises the question of whether Christopher Nolan should have made some cuts to the story so that he could spend more time on different areas and thus develop them more. Because in his pursuit to cover practically everything within the source material, he can start to feel unfocused. As an example, there are a lot of scientists and miscellaneous characters that Oppenheimer meets that don't always feel essential to the plot. Most have a reason to be there, but are they all required? Not necessarily. And some other characters have more screen time which you could make a case for removing, and not much would impact the plot. So I would have loved to see some of the excess cut out so we could spend more time on the meat of the story. Ultimately, this didn't hurt the movie, and I still enjoyed the pace most of the time. Another aspect I see people criticize a lot is that the movie's last act is tedious, given that it's primarily hearings, but I honestly found them pretty intriguing. The film transforms into a political thriller, and Oppenheimer's final hurdle is overcoming the lion's den of government, trying to discredit and tear him down. So I still enjoyed this aspect, and there is a final twist and climax for this act that makes the long buildup feel satisfying. And again, since a lot of the hearings screentime is dispersed throughout the movie, it allows the 3rd act to get to that payoff faster while not feeling like they skipped over anything. That, and you witness the culmination of Oppenheimer's arc, which is riveting throughout the whole movie. So overall, I enjoyed Oppenheimer and gave it a 4.5/5. I was pretty close to dropping it to a four. Still, some scenes are truly outstanding, like the bomb testing scene that propels this movie higher, in my opinion.

Moving over to Barbie, I feel like there is a major divide between people who hate the idea of a Barbie movie and refuse to watch it for their unique grievances and the other group of people who are genuinely excited to see it because it's being made with actual passion. Greta Gerwig has proven herself to be an excellent director, and she continues this trend with Barbie. This movie is good and is not a meme because it's great. It's hilarious, bright, and fun; the production design is so creative and pops, the acting is superb, and the writing surprisingly tackles many different themes and issues. It's not necessarily intense, given that the tone is still wacky and silly. However, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach still put much effort into the script. Like going into the movie, I thought it would be a fun time with lots of jokes. Still, it spends as much time examining larger societal issues and journeying into Ken and Barbie as characters. It analyzes identity, purpose, toxic masculinity, patriarchy, capitalism, feminism, womanhood, and more. I didn't think I'd be moved and feel something emotional in a Barbie movie, but I did. The ending, in particular, really cuts deep and tries to hit you in the feels. The movie tackles so many topics that it always feels relevant. Ken and Barbie are oddly relatable in their struggles despite always being dialed up to 11 and extremely over the top. Ken's arc, in particular, is my favorite aspect of the movie. I won't go into what it's about because that would be a spoiler, given that it wasn't revealed in the trailer. I assumed he would be an annoying side protagonist that followed Barbie into the real world that would only crack jokes. But that couldn't be farther from the truth because he makes his revelations alongside Barbie. He's hilarious, and his comedic timing is always on point. It seems like he's having so much fun in the role, and he's trying hard. It would be blasphemy to say that this is one of his best performances, but it truly is. Every moment he bursts with exaggerated emotion, perfectly fitting the movie's tone. His entire musical number surges with energy, and whenever the movie splurges and goes headfirst into over-the-top fun, I couldn't help but feel like an overjoyed kid again. I wish the movie did this more, and I wanted them to lean even heavier into the creativity of Barbieland and how they emphasize that crazy energy via filmmaking. This one shot of two Kens shooting their manly energy at each other like Voldemort and Harry dueling was hilarious. I wanted more crazy moments like this. Truly go off the deep end and embrace more exaggerated actions and moments like in anime.

This is just a nitpick, and I wish Greta Gerwig delivered more of that because those moments were amazing. But back to the characters, Barbie also has a pretty deep arc alongside Ken. Margot also performs well since she communicates a lot visually while pretending that everything is still bright and cheery. She's the one that's having an existential crisis, and it makes her journey of self-discovery hit deep within the audience because everyone can relate to it. Even if you're a male. It isn't just about gender but the purpose, and one's worth to society. How they explore this arc and expertly tie it in with a fun plot is just great writing. Not to mention them also touching so many other themes, Ken having an arc that's just as good as Barbie's, along with a lot of humor, makes this script outstanding and mind-boggling as to how it's this good. Barbie is the epitome of the theory iceberg where on the surface, you assume it will just be all bright colors and dance numbers. Still, it's a moving tale with so much going on under the surface. I was thinking about it during the movie but think about how hard it would be to write a script for a Barbie movie initially. It seems like a daunting task to make a relatable story with bland toys. Somehow, Greta Gerwig knocks it out of the park and does a much better job than most other movies regarding character arcs, a good plot, and themes. The music also fits the movie, like Cinderella stepping into her shoe. As I said before, the production design is impressive. I think people will easily discard the production design for being girly and all pink. Still, it's really detailed and meticulously designed. It also draws lots of inspiration from classic cinema, like the pink brick road leading to Barbieland being a reference to the gold brick road leading to Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz. So there's a lot of care and thought being put into the genetic makeup of the film, and that comes through in every scene.

 Taking a look at the villain, Will Ferrell does a pretty good job. He's not groundbreaking, but the movie doesn't need him to be. He's just here to be a silly CEO and embodies what's wrong with how the film portrays society. Like the contrast from Barbieland, in which it's a world predominantly run by women, to the real one, in which it's primarily male-dominated. Seeing Barbie's reaction to Mattel as a company was writing gold because of this. Along with it being funny that Mattel was perfectly OK with being made fun of so much for being greedy and out of touch. I also loved the real world's production design, which is much more desaturated and muted than Barbie Land. The offices of Mattel are depressingly grey and black, and even the kids at high school are wearing dark colors to represent their detachment from the happiness that Barbie represents. So even on a set design and costume design level, much effort and thought is being put into the movie. For Barbie's structure and length, I honestly wish it was longer. It clocks in at just under 2 hours, and it would be practically perfect for me if they made another fun and creative scene in Barbie Land. It's hard to be annoyed at this, though, because there is no fat in this movie, and it is extremely efficient in its usage of time and pace. Greta Gerwig doesn't beat around the bush; we go to the real world relatively quickly. I was pretty surprised by how fast we went there and wanted to spend more time in Barbie Land. Which feels like a weird thing to be saying as an adult, but yeah. Because of this, I would have loved an extra fun scene within the first act. I would also talk about the third act because that's easily the best to me, but it thankfully wasn't revealed in the trailers at all, so that I won't talk about it here. Which is a godsend for how good the trailers for Barbie have been. It's pretty rare nowadays that the entire third act of a movie is preserved. Especially when another Warner Bros movie that just came out spoils everything besides the final 10 minutes of the movie in the trailer. But going back to Barbie, Greta Gerwig pumps this movie with so much passion, creativity, heart, joy, and wit that I feel like anyone can enjoy it. I only have a few minor issues with the movie, and it's a superb and enjoyable time.

Now the main question for this blog is whether or not Barbie or Oppenheimer is better thanthe other. Honestly, I'd give them both the same rating. They're both excellent movies with minor flaws that impacted me by giving them flawless scores. It's up to you personally if you like one over the other. Because they are entirely different movies, there will inevitably be a significant divide regarding who wants which movie more. There's no definitive answer here, which may seem like a copout, so be happy that we got two great movies simultaneously and aren't part of a massive franchise of sequels. Thank you for reading, and let me know what you thought about the two movies in the comments.

Some popular questions and answers:

What is better, Oppenheimer or Barbie?

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the movie "Barbie" holds an impressive 90% approval rating among critics and an 87% approval rating among the audience. Meanwhile, the film "Oppenheimer" has received even higher acclaim, with 94% critics and 93% audience scores.

Who won, Oppenheimer or Barbie?

Barbie emerges as the clear winner, surpassing Oppenheimer with more than double the box office revenue. However, it's essential to consider that Barbie enjoyed certain advantages. Its weekend opening brought in a staggering $155 million, making it the year's biggest debut, surpassing even the Super Mario Bros.

Did Barbie beat Oppenheimer?

At the box office, 'Barbie' triumphs over 'Oppenheimer' with a remarkable $155 million record-setting debut. At the London premiere of the film Barbie this month, actors Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie pose for photographers.

Watch these two movies' trailer: