It seems he, and many others, wanted the pilots to be performing multiple barrel rolls and whooping and shouting "fuck yea" every time they downed an enemy plane.
I thought the film portrayed a very realistic vision of what fighting in the air was like at the time. How every push on the throttle was eating away at your fuel and fighting time. How, when downing a plane, there was no over the top celebration just a quick confirmation over the radio to his fellow pilots.
As soon as I saw the Mad Max comparisons I knew I could be in trouble but even then, I was surprised how light on the plot it was. The movie strikes me as empty for lack of better word, outside of some patriotic chest pumping and the laughable "home" lines, basic characterization, it's a very straight forward sequence ( who the hell wrote this babble about Nolan reinventing time or something ? smh) of increasingly repetitive events that try and fail to spark some tension out of you, topped by an annoying and monotonous OST. I guess the very finale elicited some response out of me but it's not much to go on. Shame but it's 3 bad Nolan movies in a row now.
Not sure where to begin. The positives, I guess: movie looked great, visually. Especially the -hour- sequences with the planes, a lot of wide pans of the glaring sea and sky. Really well done. Another positive is the concept of the week/day/hour. It's a pretty genius idea. The execution, however...
As for the negatives: the movie is boring. Profoundly boring. Perhaps its nothingness is emphasised by Hans Zimmer's TERRIBLE soundtrack. The constant ticking, the ramped up strings when literally nothing remotely interesting is happening for prolonged periods of time. Especially at the start of the movie there's a sequence for what feels like an eternity but in reality is probably 15 minutes where some crazy epic music plays when there is nothing happening. At one point my girlfriend leans in and says "what the hell is with this music". I don't know but it was driving me crazy.
As for the week/day/hour thing: I feel Nolan completely botched the week, but at the same time nailed the hour. The day was just filler. The movie gives zero indication that a whole week passes. Everytime the same shots of the soldiers on the beach, the navy guy standing at the end of the mole. Nolan seems to go out of his way to not give the week-characters names of personalities, which results in me not caring about anyone or anything that happened. Especially when the timeshifts spoil the outcome of supposedly tense situations way beforehand. We already see
the air squad destroying the bomber, we already know the ship will get bombarded, we already find out the blue fishing ship with the soldiers will sink
. Zero tension.
The only solid sequence was near the end
with the pilot gliding over the beach, accepting his fate
. Visually incredible [aside from the sloppiness with the city overviews] and bittersweet.
Also - the scale of the movie. 350.000 soldiers rescued, really? REALLY? There were 1000, tops. And 10 boats or so. I don't know the historical accuracy, so perhaps me expecting an armada of 1000 boats is completely wrong, but you can't
build up to this huge rescue scene and then have 10 fucking boats, and say there were 350,000 men saved in the next scene
.
And that final shot. What the hell was that?
I don't know, I thought it was a thoroughly uninteresting movie. The theatre was roughly 1/3d full, and a collective sigh went through the room when the movie ended. Everyone just sighed, lifted their shoulders and went for the exit. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just "okay".
Also - the scale of the movie. 350.000 soldiers rescued, really? REALLY? There were 1000, tops. And 10 boats or so. I don't know the historical accuracy, so perhaps me expecting an armada of 1000 boats is completely wrong, but you can't
build up to this huge rescue scene and then have 10 fucking boats, and say there were 350,000 men saved in the next scene
I mean it's a shame that you didn't like the soundtrack and stuff but eh that's mostly subjective.
The scale problem has been commented on by lots of people though and was my only real problem with the movie too. There were around 850 civil boats (not all of them arrived at the same time mind you but still way more than what Nolan showed) and you never had the sense that there were in fact 400k men on that beach.
Same deal with the planes. Both the Luftwaffe und British Air Force lost about 160 planes each. There were like what 5 or 6 planes total in the movie?
It's Nolan's aversion for CGI. You know a couple more CGI lines of soldiers in the background, more ships etc. Basically stuff that is so good today that the vast majority of people wouldn't even notice it is CG.
For the plane stuff he made the right call I think. That shit was magical in IMAX. The rattling of the plane felt so real because well hell yeah those were real ww2 spitfires.
That final shot? That was fucking beautiful alright. The natural lighting, plane burning and Hardy looking at it. That was almost Terrence Malick esque.
It seems he, and many others, wanted the pilots to be performing multiple barrel rolls and whooping and shouting "fuck yea" every time they downed an enemy plane.
I thought the film portrayed a very realistic vision of what fighting in the air was like at the time. How every push on the throttle was eating away at your fuel and fighting time. How, when downing a plane, there was no over the top celebration just a quick confirmation over the radio to his fellow pilots.
Not sure where to begin. The positives, I guess: movie looked great, visually. Especially the -hour- sequences with the planes, a lot of wide pans of the glaring sea and sky. Really well done. Another positive is the concept of the week/day/hour. It's a pretty genius idea. The execution, however...
As for the negatives: the movie is boring. Profoundly boring. Perhaps its nothingness is emphasised by Hans Zimmer's TERRIBLE soundtrack. The constant ticking, the ramped up strings when literally nothing remotely interesting is happening for prolonged periods of time. Especially at the start of the movie there's a sequence for what feels like an eternity but in reality is probably 15 minutes where some crazy epic music plays when there is nothing happening. At one point my girlfriend leans in and says "what the hell is with this music". I don't know but it was driving me crazy.
As for the week/day/hour thing: I feel Nolan completely botched the week, but at the same time nailed the hour. The day was just filler. The movie gives zero indication that a whole week passes. Everytime the same shots of the soldiers on the beach, the navy guy standing at the end of the mole. Nolan seems to go out of his way to not give the week-characters names of personalities, which results in me not caring about anyone or anything that happened. Especially when the timeshifts spoil the outcome of supposedly tense situations way beforehand. We already see
the air squad destroying the bomber, we already know the ship will get bombarded, we already find out the blue fishing ship with the soldiers will sink
. Zero tension.
The only solid sequence was near the end
with the pilot gliding over the beach, accepting his fate
. Visually incredible [aside from the sloppiness with the city overviews] and bittersweet.
Also - the scale of the movie. 350.000 soldiers rescued, really? REALLY? There were 1000, tops. And 10 boats or so. I don't know the historical accuracy, so perhaps me expecting an armada of 1000 boats is completely wrong, but you can't
build up to this huge rescue scene and then have 10 fucking boats, and say there were 350,000 men saved in the next scene
.
And that final shot. What the hell was that?
I don't know, I thought it was a thoroughly uninteresting movie. The theatre was roughly 1/3d full, and a collective sigh went through the room when the movie ended. Everyone just sighed, lifted their shoulders and went for the exit. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just "okay".
I enjoyed the movie but didn't love it like many of you. I may have a very unpopular opinion on this one but I thought the whole
different timelines really hurts the movie. I love when I see stories from different perspectives but this felt so needless.It made the movie so jarring, I wouldn't mind an edited version of the movie told in chronological order.
the OST becomes more profound when you realise the key motif is a meditation on elgar's nimrod, which only resolves itself towards the end of the film.
the OST becomes more profound when you realise the key motif is a meditation on elgar's nimrod, which only resolves itself towards the end of the film.
When Kenneth Brenagh takes the binoculars and sees the ships arriving and the part from minute 4 onward from "Home" starts. Bruh fucking goosebumps and tears and shit. I'm not even British and felt patriotic as hell during that part.
Watched this yesterday. Damn this movie never takes a break, to the point where it feels longer than it actually was. It was pretty horrific, but it was great. The music was great for building suspense and tension as well imo.
I went with a bunch of seniors from the retirement home and a vet; they liked it.
I want to see detroit next, that trailer was pretty good save for John Boyega's bad American accent
Not sure where to begin. The positives, I guess: movie looked great, visually. Especially the -hour- sequences with the planes, a lot of wide pans of the glaring sea and sky. Really well done. Another positive is the concept of the week/day/hour. It's a pretty genius idea. The execution, however...
As for the negatives: the movie is boring. Profoundly boring. Perhaps its nothingness is emphasised by Hans Zimmer's TERRIBLE soundtrack. The constant ticking, the ramped up strings when literally nothing remotely interesting is happening for prolonged periods of time. Especially at the start of the movie there's a sequence for what feels like an eternity but in reality is probably 15 minutes where some crazy epic music plays when there is nothing happening. At one point my girlfriend leans in and says "what the hell is with this music". I don't know but it was driving me crazy.
As for the week/day/hour thing: I feel Nolan completely botched the week, but at the same time nailed the hour. The day was just filler. The movie gives zero indication that a whole week passes. Everytime the same shots of the soldiers on the beach, the navy guy standing at the end of the mole. Nolan seems to go out of his way to not give the week-characters names of personalities, which results in me not caring about anyone or anything that happened. Especially when the timeshifts spoil the outcome of supposedly tense situations way beforehand. We already see
the air squad destroying the bomber, we already know the ship will get bombarded, we already find out the blue fishing ship with the soldiers will sink
. Zero tension.
The only solid sequence was near the end
with the pilot gliding over the beach, accepting his fate
. Visually incredible [aside from the sloppiness with the city overviews] and bittersweet.
Also - the scale of the movie. 350.000 soldiers rescued, really? REALLY? There were 1000, tops. And 10 boats or so. I don't know the historical accuracy, so perhaps me expecting an armada of 1000 boats is completely wrong, but you can't
build up to this huge rescue scene and then have 10 fucking boats, and say there were 350,000 men saved in the next scene
.
And that final shot. What the hell was that?
I don't know, I thought it was a thoroughly uninteresting movie. The theatre was roughly 1/3d full, and a collective sigh went through the room when the movie ended. Everyone just sighed, lifted their shoulders and went for the exit. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just "okay".
Came to share my thoughts and see that someone beat me to the punch. I'm higher on the soundtrack, but aside from that I agree fully. Dunkirk is a big beautiful bore. The struggle to keep my eyes open was far more rigorous than anything happening on screen.
Hopefully a second viewing helps(I was pretty tired). On paper there is no reason for me not to be in love with this.
Ex:
1. The entire subplot with the beached boat and the target practice and the hole plugging. That whole thing is just stupid AF. As if one person leaving the boat was going to save it? The needless death of the hero French guy? F this whole scene.
Not sure where to begin. The positives, I guess: movie looked great, visually. Especially the -hour- sequences with the planes, a lot of wide pans of the glaring sea and sky. Really well done. Another positive is the concept of the week/day/hour. It's a pretty genius idea. The execution, however...
As for the negatives: the movie is boring. Profoundly boring. Perhaps its nothingness is emphasised by Hans Zimmer's TERRIBLE soundtrack. The constant ticking, the ramped up strings when literally nothing remotely interesting is happening for prolonged periods of time. Especially at the start of the movie there's a sequence for what feels like an eternity but in reality is probably 15 minutes where some crazy epic music plays when there is nothing happening. At one point my girlfriend leans in and says "what the hell is with this music". I don't know but it was driving me crazy.
As for the week/day/hour thing: I feel Nolan completely botched the week, but at the same time nailed the hour. The day was just filler. The movie gives zero indication that a whole week passes. Everytime the same shots of the soldiers on the beach, the navy guy standing at the end of the mole. Nolan seems to go out of his way to not give the week-characters names of personalities, which results in me not caring about anyone or anything that happened. Especially when the timeshifts spoil the outcome of supposedly tense situations way beforehand. We already see
the air squad destroying the bomber, we already know the ship will get bombarded, we already find out the blue fishing ship with the soldiers will sink
. Zero tension.
The only solid sequence was near the end
with the pilot gliding over the beach, accepting his fate
. Visually incredible [aside from the sloppiness with the city overviews] and bittersweet.
Also - the scale of the movie. 350.000 soldiers rescued, really? REALLY? There were 1000, tops. And 10 boats or so. I don't know the historical accuracy, so perhaps me expecting an armada of 1000 boats is completely wrong, but you can't
build up to this huge rescue scene and then have 10 fucking boats, and say there were 350,000 men saved in the next scene
.
And that final shot. What the hell was that?
I don't know, I thought it was a thoroughly uninteresting movie. The theatre was roughly 1/3d full, and a collective sigh went through the room when the movie ended. Everyone just sighed, lifted their shoulders and went for the exit. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just "okay".
I loved the music but your post sums up my thoughts. No tension at all. Not getting the RT scores at all. But this movie will clean up in technical categories at the Oscars.
Also - the scale of the movie. 350.000 soldiers rescued, really? REALLY? There were 1000, tops. And 10 boats or so. I don't know the historical accuracy, so perhaps me expecting an armada of 1000 boats is completely wrong, but you can't
build up to this huge rescue scene and then have 10 fucking boats, and say there were 350,000 men saved in the next scene
I agree with pretty much everything you said but this especially. The "home" line sounds especially corny when the camera turns and you see like 10 small fishing boats. Actually, most of the dialogues were surprisingly corny, as well as a few plot developments.
The movie looks nice and I still enjoyed it, but I'm surprised it was so well received. There are some major flaws.
That random 5 minute Dunkirk scene in Atonement was almost more interesting than this entire movie.
I thought the movie was an enjoyable thriller. Its nothing mind-blowing, but there were some intense scenes (the claustrophobic parts got to me). I liked how it was framed from three different perspectives, even if became a little jumbled at times.
When Kenneth Brenagh takes the binoculars and sees the ships arriving and the part from minute 4 onward from "Home" starts. Bruh fucking goosebumps and tears and shit. I'm not even British and felt patriotic as hell during that part.
Watched this one yesterday, really enjoyed it...but holy hell, this was one of the loudest cinema experiences I have experienced. It was (almost) like being at a Metallica concert and getting my eardrums blown out of my head.
Do we only see cillian Murphy on the private yacht boat? I could have sworn I saw him on a life boat telling Tommy and Alex they were full and they'll come back for them.
Do we only see cillian Murphy on the private yacht boat? I could have sworn I saw him on a life boat telling Tommy and Alex they were full and they'll come back for them.
As a war nerd, it was lovely to see an actual French destroyer camoe'd to look like a Royal Navy ship circa 1940. The ships were real and so were the airplanes - the allied aircraft were old Yaks made to look like Spitfires, and the Luftwaffe were old Buchons made to look like 109's.
That being said, the film could have used *a bit* more CGI. As someone who's been to Dunkirk a couple of times, that shot of Tommy trying to take a shit showed a bunch of houses that certainly were not there in the late 1930s/40s. That final tracking shot of Tom Hardy trying to land also shows a bunch of early 2000s summer condos in the distance.
Dramatically, the film was ludicrous (almost left when
the boy is bizarrely killed in an altercation on the small ship
As a war nerd, it was lovely to see an actual French destroyer camoe'd to look like a Royal Navy ship circa 1940. The ships were real and so were the airplanes - the allied aircraft were old Yaks made to look like Spitfires, and the Luftwaffe were old Buchons made to look like 109's.
That being said, the film could have used *a bit* more CGI. As someone who's been to Dunkirk a couple of times, that shot of Tommy trying to take a shit showed a bunch of houses that certainly were not there in the late 1930s/40s. That final tracking shot of Tom Hardy trying to land also shows a bunch of early 2000s summer condos in the distance.
Dramatically, the film was ludicrous (almost left when
the boy is bizarrely killed in an altercation on the small ship
I have the some complaint, but he was working with $100 million budget and not a Transformers-level $300 million budget. For what the film lacked in epic scale, it delivered on the visceral real-ness of the ships, planes, and sensationally real peril the men were put in.
I have the some complaint, but he was working with $100 million budget and not a Transformers-level $300 million budget. For what the film lacked in epic scale, it delivered on the visceral real-ness of the ships, planes, and sensationally real peril the men were put in.
Can we please stop pretending $100m is a small production budget? It had the equivalent of SPR's budget in 1996 dollars give or take $10m and was about 50mins shorter.
different timelines really hurts the movie. I love when I see stories from different perspectives but this felt so needless.It made the movie so jarring, I wouldn't mind an edited version of the movie told in chronological order.
I didn't expect any timeline wrangling in the movie, but before we went in I literally said to my friends "I hope we see some of Nolan's narrative playfulness in this".
So the first hints you get of overlapping timelines blew me away. Seeing the same thing from different angles, weirdly, gave me a big thrill. Like in a novel or game when you see something from another character's perspective.
Ex:
1. The entire subplot with the beached boat and the target practice and the hole plugging. That whole thing is just stupid AF. As if one person leaving the boat was going to save it? The needless death of the hero French guy? F this whole scene.
That was the point. Everything they were talking about doing was absolutely stupid, because the pressure cooker of the ship, the dehydration and malnutrition, the fear - the men being pretty much driven insane by prolonged tension and stress - was leading to them making dumb decisions and saying dumb shit.
The French guy dying definitely needed a quick shot of seeing him get tangled up in something. Wasn't very well explained.
I have the some complaint, but he was working with $100 million budget and not a Transformers-level $300 million budget. For what the film lacked in epic scale, it delivered on the visceral real-ness of the ships, planes, and sensationally real peril the men were put in.
That being said, the film could have used *a bit* more CGI. As someone who's been to Dunkirk a couple of times, that shot of Tommy trying to take a shit showed a bunch of houses that certainly were not there in the late 1930s/40s. That final tracking shot of Tom Hardy trying to land also shows a bunch of early 2000s summer condos in the distance.
Someone needs to make a list of all the people who critize the ost for any movie topic from now on so their terrible opinion can never be taken seriously
Someone needs to make a list of all the people who critize the ost for any movie topic from now on so their terrible opinion can never be taken seriously
Are you implying that this movie had a good OST? Please go listen to Interstellar and see what Hans Zimmer sounds like at his best. This is mediocre in comparison.
Are you implying that this movie had a good OST? Please go listen to Interstellar and see what Hans Zimmer sounds like at his best. This is mediocre in comparison.
Are you implying that this movie had a good OST? Please go listen to Interstellar and see what Hans Zimmer sounds like at his best. This is mediocre in comparison.
The Interstellar soundtrack is also great. However, a score's first and foremost responsibility should be to support the emotion and storytelling on screen, moreso than being listenable on it's own. While you could say the Interstellar soundtrack is one that I'm more likely to casually listen to on it's own, the Dunkirk score aids it's film in a much, much, much stronger way. The score does so much for the intensity and sense of dread in Dunkirk. It also serves to do a wonderful job at uniting the three disparate narratives. It's an all-timer, for sure.
Especially when the timeshifts spoil the outcome of supposedly tense situations way beforehand. We already see
the air squad destroying the bomber, we already know the ship will get bombarded, we already find out the blue fishing ship with the soldiers will sink
Oh interesting, I actually felt the opposite. Knowing the outcome upped the feeling of dread during those scenes. Watching people fight and struggle when we know it's already hopeless is a wrenching sensation. Thoroughly enjoyed that aspect. Although I guess it would've also been fine if the movie went with the "will they, won't they" survival suspense for those moments, too.
He reaches the coast, runs out of fuel, does one silent pass, turns and shoots down the bomber, then lands. I got the impression that it all happened relatively quickly.
He reaches the coast, runs out of fuel, does one silent pass, turns and shoots down the bomber, then lands. I got the impression that it all happened relatively quickly.
Are you implying that this movie had a good OST? Please go listen to Interstellar and see what Hans Zimmer sounds like at his best. This is mediocre in comparison.
The only way to tell if an OST is good or not, then, is by comparing it to the composer's best work, or the best of a genre? I don't get the logic. If you dislike it then that's fine. If you think it's below par for Zimmer then that's also fine. But it sounds like you're saying it's a bad soundtrack because it's not as good as another piece of work that is (or might be) regarded as that person's best which is a very skewed view.
I usually can't stand Nolan (specifically his more recent stuff), but this was enjoyable.
The visuals and soundtrack carry the film, which doesn't get bogged down in Nolan's typical bullshit, although there still are some baffling decisions.
This isn't about some personal attack. This is about it being universality loved bar a very extremely small sample of people. You and the dozensofus.gif having this other pov generally means nothing at all in the grand scheme of things.
