Logan Paul has admitted that he “walked out” of a screening of Oppenheimer as he was unimpressed with the “lack of action” at the beginning.
The Christopher Nolan film is one of the year’s biggest box office successes, having recently surpassed $700m (£550m) global earnings.
Described as “clever, imaginative and Nolan at his best” by The Independent, the film has been hailed by many critics.
The YouTuber and boxer, however, is not among Oppenheimer’s legion of fans.
Paul, 28, shared his apathy for the film during a recent episode of his podcast, ImPaulsive, which he co-hosts with fellow internet figures Mike Majlak and George Janko.
“I walked out of Oppenheimer,” he said while in conversation with his guests, Danny and Michael Philippou, the Australian filmmaker brothers behind A24’s recently released horror hit Talk To Me.
The siblings reacted with loud surprise. When asked why he gave up on the Cillian Muphy-led movie, Paul admitted that he found the movement of the film too slow and dialogue-driven.
“I didn’t know what they were trying [to do],” he continued. “‘What are you doing?’ Everyone’s just talking. It’s just an hour and a half, 90 minutes, of talking, just talking, talking.”
He added: “It’s all exposition. Nothing happened.”
Logan Paul— (ImPaulsive podcast)
Paul shared that he’d had similar trouble enjoying another of Nolan’s film, Interstellar (2014), before later changing his mind.
“I was also, separately, 18 minutes into Interstellar, and I was considering walking out because it was so slow, and now Interstellar’s one of my top three favourite movies,” Paul noted.
The critically acclaimed, time-travelling space epic stars Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway.
Oppenheimer tells the story of real-life physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, who helped create the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is now the highest-grossing World War II film of all time.
In July, ahead of the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike, Murphy, who plays the titular character, told The Independent that he believes both Interstellar and Dunkirk would make for a great double bill with Oppenheimer.
“You could go Interstellar, which [...] explores similar scientific, physic themes,” he began. “Or you could watch Dunkirk, which is also set in World War II.
“Dunkirk is shorter, so that might be a good match ‘cause it’s like an hour-and-a-half, and then you can go into [Oppenheimer].”
You can read The Independent’s four-star review of Oppenheimer here.
