Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

**A review for those who have already watched the movie**There are a lot of great stories to be told; I often wonder why so many have not been. A swordsman who wins over 100 duels in his life, his first beginning at the age of 13, and by his twenties maintains the handicap of using a wooden blade. Yet the tale of Miyomoto Musashi is one that I have not seen put to film. The world is full of people who tell us what we can not know, yet whether or not they are as wise as they may believe themselves, I have yet to see anyone argue another's ignorance as convincingly or as wittily as Socrates (and with a crucial difference, by first asking what they know, and actually listening to how they think they know it) -- or for as noble a purpose. So when I found that a movie had been made about one of my heroes, I was very eager to see what it amounted to.I assume that either Matthew Broderick or his mother (or both) who wrote the screen play, must also have been a fan of Feynman. I wouldn't suppose to know everything about Feynman, but I have made an effort to learn everything that I could. I have read his books, looked through his Wikipedia and looked at just about everything I could track down that had anything to do with him.For me, as a physics student, the appeal of Feynman is mistranslated in the movie. He of course, was no ordinary genius, but how he accomplished what he did was as important (to the "niche" audience) as what he did, and the how seemed to be missing. Feynman developed his capacity for mental math during the Manhattan project via competition with Hans Bethe, and the development is key. The abacus scene was terrible for several reasons, some of them outlined in other reviews, chiefly for misrepresenting Feynman's personality. However the scene also sold out the accessibility of intelligence as something unique to certain individuals, that this was something 'natural' to Feynman. Feynman's IQ was measured at 125, which is supposed to be 15 points below the average PhD. Now, I'm not going to argue about the validity of IQ testing, one of the major personality traits the film wasn't able to touch on was of Feynman's insistence that people were incapable of measuring the aptitude of others' with tests. This "low" score however, was what is truly inspiring about Richard Feynman, that he never claimed to be more than a normal man. All his ability came from work driven by passion and love. Feynman wasn't a Japanese 4 year old who could speak 5 languages and solve Rubick's cubes blindfolded in 7 seconds. He was a lover of life and of learning, and it was his passion that motivated him to work hard, and his love that drove him to never give up and believe he could accomplish anything anyone else could. The real lesson of Feynman is that anyone can reach for greatness, and with drive and effort and luck attain it too. The Feynman story is one that allows us all to believe in ourselves, not one that should make us feel intimidated or insignificant. When Feynman can beat the abacus man at 18 with no background story of how his abilities came to be, it is far less inspiring.The performances were satisfying, but the story development seemed rushed, especially in the beginning. There was plenty of room for drama in the competition for Arlene with Feynman's old "friend" Howard without the need to throw in so many anecdotes that disrupt his life's true time line. I think that if you go through the books Feynman wrote only once, you miss how truly stressed Arlene's diminishing health made him. He was in many ways a subtle man, and private. When Feynman writes, I feel like he blindsides his readers from ever detecting how much he was hiding from them, with the sheer vulnerability he subjects himself to with his honesty. You can't see what hes not saying because he has already surprised you with the courage to say so much more than most people will admit to. To know how he was really feeling I think requires reading between the lines. When Feynman sees the dress, it is a total breakdown, it is overwhelming. In everything Feynman ever wrote, that was the only time he ever confessed "it was too much." I can hardly think of the scene depicted in his books without coming to tears, even now. The story of he and Arlene really is, as another reviewer put it, one of the greatest real love stories I have ever heard of.I don't know much about movies, and I understand there are limitations. You can't fit everything into 90 minutes and "the book is always better." I would be curious to hear Mr. Broderick explain why he went the way he did with certain aspects of the film. I certainly couldn't comment on whether writing, acting, and directing simultaneously would have been too much. If the film gets anyone to go and look up Richard Feynman, I think it will have served its purpose.

Matthew Broderick should be remembered for this film alone! His directing is wonderful and he manages to capture the beauty of New Mexico and the essential character of Richard Feynman. Patricia Arquette does her best work in her career in this film. He manages to capture the lessons of Feynman's youth and the influence of his father. This may be the essence of Feynman's genius and his ability to keep things in perspective despite the enormity of the undertaking and the severity of life. The scenes with Feynman's young wife Arline capture his playfulness and ability to teach through analogy and demonstration, the hallmark of his instructive method.

I'm at odds with this film. I first launched myself into physics because of the books that feynman wrote (well, spoke) and i received the full set of the feynman lectures before i started college.Matthew Broderick has always been one of my favorite actors. I liked his nerdiness and i could relate. So he was one of my reasons for deciding to branch off from physics and start a film career.In the end, though, i see why i always have a little regret for not sticking with physics. Film could never fully realize what it means to be in love with science. I understand that Feynman loved his wife, but he loved everything, that's what made her so important, he could never tire of learning to look. just like her.But this film really doesn't get that across. Plus, instead of relying on smart direction and good editing they give the game away in the opening titles, which are ridiculously lame.**SPOILER** (please it's a real story go read the book)The intercut to the parallel line of the Trinity test explosion is a neat idea, but ultimately poorly executed and timed. But i see where they were going. But they missed it. Because the explosion for feynman is when he sees the dress, not when she dies. remember that great advice, you can call it whatever you want in a thousand languages but that doesn't mean you know it. When feynman sees the dress, he *knows* what it means for arlene to die. He can't share with her anymore, that is what her death *is*. and that should have been the point. you've got to learn what a thing is before you can tell someone else. Feynman was a great man, but he had his flaws. However, the number of people he has influenced is incredible. And i'm glad that somebody made a film about him. However, Feynman's clipped style of speech, what made him so unique and distinct, is not available to the viewer and it cheapens it.I'm sorry to say that i did not like this film. In fact, it made me a little angry to watch it and see my hero stripped of his unique story.

This was a very worthy project of the Brodericks, mother and son, and one which I would have liked to have tackled myself, having read and greatly enjoyed both "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?". To concentrate on the deep love story between Feynman and his first wife Arline, which coincided with his work on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, was, I feel, a good filmic move in order to give the story an anchor (not to mention the fact that it truly is one of the most romantic real love stories I've ever heard of). Every movie adaptation has to make sacrifices, and this one obviously had to sacrifice all the other interesting stuff that happened to Feynman in the years after the war. So I don't have a problem with the quality of the script, and they also had a big enough budget to get the period feel.However, this film falls down in a major way on the characterisation of its lead character. Surprisingly, for Broderick is not a bad actor, he just comes across as being Broderick - a good looking young man who can look lovingly at Patricia Arquette and add a bit of passion to his voice when explaining complicated physics. But we've all seen the real Feynman on television and in film - he was LARGER than life! He was intensely charismatic, a brilliant expositor of scientific ideas and a great teacher.It seems to me that instead of succumbing to the temptation of directing, that Broderick should really have got someone else direct, so that he could concentrate on really getting inside the head of Feynman and reproducing on screen some of that charisma - something I'm quite sure Broderick is capable of doing.So ultimately this is a missed opportunity. You learn some of the facts about what happened, but you don't really meet the real Richard P. Feynman.