Inspired by tense family holiday gatherings (and a recent rewatch of Oppenheimer), let’s turn our attention towards ranking Hollywood’s most memorable depictions of nuclear explosions, the kind of conflagrations I’d welcome with open, melting arms considering the temperature in my hometown hasn’t muscled its way past zero going on three days now. #wintersucks

The candidates, in alphabetical order: Asteroid City, The Dark Knight Rises, The Day After, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Failsafe, Fat Man and Little Boy, Godzilla (2014), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Matinee, Oppenheimer, The Peacemaker, Star Wars: Rogue One, The Sum of All Fears, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies and World War Z.

As always, each film has been processed through my residential super-computer’s proprietary algorithms to ensure objectivity. Points will be tallied at the end of Part Three and a winner crowned with a laurel of plutonium, uranium and heavy water.

Asteroid City (2023, Director: Wes Anderson)

Super Quick Synopsis®—In this movie-within-a-play-within-a-TV-documentary-about-the-making-of-the-play, a recent widower (Jason Schwartzman) attends a Junior Stargazer convention in Asteroid City with his son Woodrow and his three younger daughters. Soon after arriving in town they experience what the locals shrug off as an everyday occurrence: a nuclear bomb test.

• Tension-filled Lead Up to Armageddon (0/10)—Movie just started. Also, it was just a controlled test.

• Mushroom Cloud Accuracy (4/10)—As you’ll see from the clip below, the explosion wasn’t meant to look realistic. This is, after all, a Wes Anderson film. If I had to guess, I figure he eschewed computers for some type of traditional stop-motion-with-cotton-balls to pull off the effect.

 

• Disturbing Content Involving Human Incineration (0/10)—Nada.

• Shockwave Effect w/Emphasis on Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (1/10)—An audible thump, a little shake is all.

 

 

The Dark Knight Rises (2012, Director: Christopher Nolan)

Super Quick Synopsis®—Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) must fly a ticking neutron bomb—nefariously fashioned by the mumbling Bane (Tom Hardy) and Miranda Tate/Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard) from a harmless little fusion reactor—out of Gotham via his Batcopter. Will the Caped Crusader have enough time to get the WMD far enough over water to save his city? And, if he succeeds, can he survive the blast? You’ll find out tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

• Tension-filled Lead Up to Armageddon (7/10)—Between tracking down the device, vanquishing the heretofore unstoppable baddies, struggling to deactivate it and, finally, fly it out of Dodge, all while the clock ticks inevitably downward, indeed makes for some sweaty palms.

  

• Mushroom Cloud Accuracy (5/10)—Kinda mid CGI, including some wonky lighting in the cloud IMHO. As one watches the explosion, one can definitely understand why Nolan insisted that his Oppenheimer blast to be created by practical means only.

  

• Disturbing Content Involving Human Incineration (0/10)—Nada. Although it would’ve been kinda funny if the blast’s shockwave dislodged that yellow orphanage school bus you see in the clip, sending it plunging into the icy depths of the Gotham river. Maybe that’s just me.

• Shockwave Effect w/Emphasis on Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (0/10)—Nada. Gotham saved.

 

The Day After (1983, Director: Nicholas Meyer)

Super Quick Synopsis®—Juxtaposed with various characters living their idyllic Midwestern lives, we see, via media coverage playing in the background, that things aren’t going quite as wonderfully in Europe. It seems the Warsaw Pact (remember those losers? If not, click here) is up to no good in Germany, setting up a blockade around NATO-controlled West Berlin. Not to be intimidated, the US puts its mighty foot down, issuing an ultimatum which results in NATO troops getting crushed trying to break the blockade. Things escalate quickly. Russia invades Germany. Navies battle in the Persian Gulf. NATO detonates a tactical nuke over the advancing Warsaw Pact troops. And then, out of better ideas, both sides decide to end Earth by launching their ICBMs.

• Tension-filled Lead Up to Armageddon (8/10)—I remember watching this as a 14-year-old despite warnings from psychologists and other “experts” that impressionable viewers might suffer nightmares/depression/PTSD. Luckily, I got over it after a night of restless sleep. However, I will admit that the whole lead-up to the war was pretty unsettling.

  

• Mushroom Cloud Accuracy (2/10)—Upon closer inspection, it seems to be a combo of re-purposed/re-colored archival footage optically printed into  the filmed content. In other words, it looks like shit. A couple guys I knew back in middle school could’ve done better with their Commodore 64 8-bit computers, BASIC programming and a floppy disk. Director Nicholas Meyer, fresh from the triumph of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, must’ve cried in his beer when the producers told him they couldn’t afford Industrial Light & Magic to handle the visual effects.

 

• Disturbing Content Involving Human Incineration (6/10)—Cheesily done (skeletons revealed like filament afterglow as people and horses are vaporized) but kinda effective nonetheless. Especially when you’re 14.

 

• Shockwave Effect w/Emphasis on Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (4/10)—My original score of 8/10 (there is a lot of rapid unscheduled disassembly) loses four points to the fact that 98% of the aforementioned scenes are archival footage we’ve seen 200 times before. Those trees bending against the onslaught of nuclear wind? The little houses coming apart like a seeding dandelion? Get outta here with that shit.

 

 

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, Director: Stanley Kubrick)

Super Quick Synopsis®—Major T. J. “King” Kong (Slim Pickens), unaware that his nuclear strike order has been rescinded by the President, finds the bomb bay doors of his B-52 jammed closed. With only seconds to drop, Kong, intent on engaging in “nuclear combat toe-to-toe with the Russkies” at all costs, vacates the cockpit to remedy the situation with some good ol’ American elbow grease.

• Tension-filled Lead Up to Armageddon (6/10)—Well, sure. Then again, this is satire. So any tension involving bad communications, malfunctioning weapon systems, a wheelchair-bound ex-Nazi and national bunker envy is relative.

 

• Mushroom Cloud Accuracy (5/10)—First, I’m awarding the film 10 points because the footage is of actual nuclear explosions and what can be more accurate than that? Then I’m then subtracting five points because that’s cheating.

 

• Disturbing Content Involving Human Incineration (2/10)—Nothing really. But I’ll award two points for Kong riding the bomb down to Russian soil like he’s breaking a pony.

 

• Shockwave Effect w/Emphasis on Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (2/10)—Again, nothing of note. But I’ll happily award two points for the world ending to “We’ll Meet Again” as sung by Vera Lynn.

 

 

Failsafe (1964, Director: Sidney Lumet)

Super Quick Synopsis®—A false alarm involving American airspace inadvertently activates an American Bomber Group to drop its nukes on Moscow. Desperate to recall or destroy the planes, the President (Henry Fonda) and his advisors go so far as to provide their Russians counterparts with information on how best to shoot the American craft from the sky. With these and other countermeasures failing, the President orders a bomber to circle Manhattan. Its mission: if Moscow is destroyed by America, then America will destroy its own largest city in kind, using the Empire State Building as ground zero. Anything to prevent Russian retaliation.

• Tension-filled Lead Up to Armageddon (9/10)—Great acting and a taut scenario make this film a nail-biter right to the depressing end. Oh, and did I mention the President’s wife happens to be in NYC for a meeting?

 

• Mushroom Cloud Accuracy (5/10)—There is no cloud. In this film, the nuclear blast is presented as a high-pitched squeal heard over the phone as the President tries to comfort the American Ambassador in Moscow. And then, when Manhattan gets it, we see a montage of everyday New York street life followed by disorienting zooms before the movie fades to black. So, despite no cloud, I’m giving the film an unprecedented five points because it’s damn creative in its use of “less is more.”

  

• Disturbing Content Involving Human Incineration (5/10)—Nothing; but, then again, just before the NYC squeal we see everyday life play out and can imagine the consequences. Thus, three points for mental anguish.

   

• Shockwave Effect w/Emphasis on Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (0/10)—Nada.

 

Fat Man and Little Boy (1989, Director: Roland Joffe)

Super Quick Synopsis®—J. Robert Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz, he of The A-Team TV series fame) et al are in a race against the Axis Powers/clock to create the ultimate weapon: a bomb harnessing the power of the atom that’s capable of an unspeakable explosive yield. And then, at 5:29:45 (Zulu time) on July 16, 1945, they press the button.

• Tension-filled Lead Up to Armageddon (7/10)—As with all well-edited films, not to mention the historical significance of the moment and the inclusion of a spoken countdown, the machinations of developing/testing the bomb are well portrayed and, therefore, tense. However, I’m compelled to subtract two points because unless you’ve been living under a rock you know the device will work. (Interesting aside: the movie has Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite” playing over the countdown, a nod to the strange fact that a local radio station was broadcasting on the same frequency. However, the consensus seems to be that what was actually playing was Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings,” a piece perhaps not quite propulsive enough for the filmmakers. I will also add, in a very book-snobbish-I-read-it-you-didn’t way, that the definitive account of the development/testing of the A-Bomb, Richard Rhodes’ Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb, makes no reference to any music so maybe it’s all just Hollywood bullshit.)

 

• Mushroom Cloud Accuracy (4/10)—For much of the explosion, the filmmakers choose to focus their camera on the reflection of  light in Oppenheimer’s goggles. When we do get to see the mushroom cloud, very briefly at the end of the sequence, it kinda sucks because, back in 1989, the tech really wasn’t there for realistic a-bomb detonations.

 

• Disturbing Content Involving Human Incineration (0/10)—Nada.

• Shockwave Effect w/Emphasis on Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (3/10)—Nothing, really. However, I will award three points for the leaf-blower-induced ripples on Oppenheimer’s face, which must signify a lot of post-detonation wind.

 

That’s it for Part One! Get ready for Godzilla (2014), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Matinee, Oppenheimer and The Peacemaker in Part Two, coming soon!