Box office behemoth 'Barbenheimer' backed up by two solid, entertaining summer films

I went to the movies twice last weekend and had no idea I was in lock-step with “Barbenheimer,” a movie-industry push to get people to their local theaters for a double feature of two completely different films, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.”

Oh, I had heard of “Barbenheimer,” the silly name given to Hollywood’s one-two punch. On Friday, I saw a meme that spoofed the poster for “La La Land,” the 2016 musical that was Best Picture for a moment. In the meme, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone were replaced with Cillian Murphy, who plays physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Margot Robie, who plays Barbie. But I just thought the meme was a joke, ha ha.

It wasn’t. Though invested with humor, “Barbenheimer” was an actual campaign to get people to theaters and give the anemic box office a much-needed shot of adrenaline.

It worked. According to Box Office Mojo, “Barbie,” in a single weekend, became the most financially successful film ever directed by a female, with a haul of $162 million in the United States.

Here’s what’s even more astonishing. “Oppenheimer,” a quite talky, three-hour film, involving a lot of science and politics, and centered on a historical figure from 80 years ago, grossed $82 million.

Whoever dreamt up this “Barbenheimer” hook, this idea that people should spend their money twice and sit in a theater for five hours on a sunny weekend, is one smart cookie. I’m just baffled that I went the whole past year having never heard of the campaign and then went to go see both movies during the same weekend, anyway.

USA Today journalist Patrick Ryan called the movie match-up a “battle of the bombshells,” an amusing riff on Barbie’s beauty and Oppenheimer’s genius with explosives.

In Ryan’s article, Margot Robie, who plays Barbie, said, “I think it’s the perfect double bill. It’s like having a steak dinner, then an ice cream sundae for dessert. I want both!”

“Oppenheimer” would be the steak dinner, of course. The film is about the man who led efforts to create the nuclear bomb during World War II. Your mind, as opposed to your belly, is full after you watch it. It’s an excellent film, certain to win several Oscars, and it’s so packed with characters and historical and scientific details that when it’s finished you feel like you want to see it again. And because it’s so good, you probably will.

Director Christopher Nolan, known best for his “Dark Knight” trilogy, is a brilliant filmmaker – even as this film is Hitchcockian in its suspense and Oliver Stone-like in its historical and political fervor, the work is all Nolan. He is unique among filmmakers today.

Here’s all you need to know about whether to invest the time and focus on “Oppenheimer.” More than two hours into the film, I saw a kid sitting at the next table. He could not have been more than 12 years old. He leaned forward in his seat, and his eyes were intently on the screen. He was as riveted as the adults around him. Maybe this kid’s on track to be class valedictorian and continue on to MIT. I dunno. I prefer to think he was simply absorbed by mesmerizing filmmaking.

“Barbie,” of course, is the ice cream sundae that Robie mentioned. Robie plays Barbie, the famous doll, who in the movie experiences an existential crisis and needs to learn to make her way in a complex world. The movie is funny, bright-colored, inventive, energetic, and satirical – a heated and pointed entry in the Battle of the Sexes. Some are bashing the film as “woke” and “anti-man,” leaving one to wonder how such grumps got by when “9 to 5” came out in 1980, and there was not any mock outrage around to muster in our politics.

Here’s what I think: While not without flaws and occasional muddled messages, “Barbie” is the best example since “Tootsie” of a comedy showing men what women experience in this world.

It has been a tough summer at the movies. I loved “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and have been baffled by its tepid box office take. Harrison Ford is fantastic in his most iconic role and is given more depth than in previous films in the series. Of the five Indy movies, I would rank “Dial of Destiny” second, tied with “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and second only to the untouchable “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

Even Tom Cruise could be in for a less-than-stellar run for his latest “Mission Impossible” sequel. Last summer, Cruise was credited with saving the movies from the clutches of the pandemic with his long-awaited “Top Gun” sequel. This summer, though, there’s a chance his new “MI” film could be outdone by a sleeper hit, “Sound of Freedom,” here in the United States.

Yes, box office millions are not the best way at all to gauge whether a movie is well-made. For lifelong film buffs like me, though, box office grosses point to whether movie-going is robust and likely to remain a popular pastime.

During the pandemic, it felt like movie theaters would become extinct – and, indeed, many of them closed. And when an anticipated blockbuster like “Indiana Jones” fails to crack the whip and bring people into theaters, it’s fair to wonder what the state of post-pandemic movie-going is today.

Kids and kids-at-heart will always flock to films based on superheroes and video-game characters, I suppose. But what about us grownups? If “Barbenheimer” proves anything, it’s that Hollywood these days needs to be creative in the ways it markets its films in this day and age of COVID hangovers and at-home streaming services.

And, of course, as both “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” show, it matters if the films are entertaining and worthwhile, to begin with.

Shawn P. Sullivan is an award-winning columnist and a reporter for the York County Coast Star. He can be reached at ssullivan@seacoastonline.com.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: 'Barbenheimer' bolstered by two solid, entertaining summer films