Had to see this today as it's on my list of movies for 2017. Saw it in 70mm IMAX so take it as you will.
Quick hits:
- The 3 story narrative while nice made no sense in terms of how the action was cut. Nolan seemed to realize that 2/3rds of the way through he had to mesh them together in order to clue the audience into what the fuck was actually happening.
- The plot or lack of exposition of it. Hi, I'm Dunkirk. I'm a skank piece of land somewhere in Europe that is across the English channel. Now that we have that out of the way, why exactly am I to care about this? Now, I'm a WW2 buff and I get the whole narrative of how Germany was swallowing Europe whole but the intensity of the Germans advancing on Dunkirk was the plot-- it never was fully fleshed out. We had one off lines about "Why aren't the tanks coming? dot dot dot "No need since they can just pick us off..." Seriously, I had flash backs to Inglorious Bastards where the german propaganda film was showing the soldier shooting people from the bell tower over and over and over and over with people cheering. If I were the Germans, why wouldn't I send enough planes to simply wipe out a majority of the troops waiting on the beach head? We'll put in a pin in that.
- Tom Hardy was miscast for this movie and I feel sorry for him actually. I starting laughing towards the end when I heard his breathing sounds and wanted him to say in his Bane voice "Ahhh yes, I was wondering what would break first...." seriously, should have been someone else. Also, the title of the film should have been "BaneMan - Wonder Floating across the Sea" -- I mean what in the living fuck? Tom Hardy's plane flew west, it flew east, it flew higher than a god damn eagle on no fucking gas AND.... oh yes, and shot down a german fighter just because why not? The story arc ending to his character landing I'm guessing somewhere in Belgium while interesting, led me to ask, what happened to him next? In fact, Tom Hardy captured in German occupied territory could have been wholly more exciting than the movie itself.
- Which leads me to my final point. Boats and how they work. If Saving Private Ryan was wandering around Europe trying to find cows, then Dunkirk was wading across the sea trying to find a boat. Not only do our dear friends get into boats multiple times and allow sudo meta sub-plots take over, they absolutely make no sense given the circumstances. The whole "He's a german spy!" bit at the end almost made me want to walk out of the movie. Not so much that the movie was not capable of taking an interesting twist (which, it still didn't... OHHH he's french!!! Queue Leonardo DiCaprio screaming "Thanks to you FRENCH BOY!" but honestly, why Nolan? Why in general? The only interesting piece of the movie was the story of the Dad and his sons. Someone who lived through World War I and knew what his duty was to his country. If the movie had solely be focused on that narrative, it may have actually been a decent flick.
Other nitpicks are the return of "InterDunkirk" music being too loud over the GD dialogue. Nolan, stop, just stop. The ChurchHill quotes at the end were also an odd touch since you leave the movie not knowing to feel sorry that you spent $20 bucks on IMAX or if Patriotism was Nolan's main point of which he pounds that drum the loudest in the final scene. The last funny thing that happened was someone was pissed because they quickly looked up if there was something at the end of the movie.... I shit you not.
Solid C - from me and I never need to see it again, save the time with my wife when it hits bluray. Too bad since it had potential.
