Kindergarten Saving Private Ryan, A Very Overrated War Movie That Doesn't Stand Close to the Greats

Rating: 4/10 (8 January 2020)

I was fooled into watching this film expecting it to be something special by the "Golden Globe" award for Best Drama. In fact, I was so fooled that by the end of it, for a second I was almost convinced it was 'that' good since the final scene was touching. I ignored and overlooked many, many flaws throughout the runtime to give it a fair chance like I do with most movies that are decent. This sometimes includes pretending I didn't pick up on a flaw, an error, a bad performance, or an implausibility.
However, after I slept on it and reflected on these things, I had to change my mind, and I just could not ignore the glaring flaws, which were somewhat juvenile and made it feel like the movie was written by a 12-year old.
There are numerous scenes in this movie (and they are the ones that are supposed to be the 'most dramatic' and 'intense') that are actually implausible to the point that they can be ridiculed and mocked at how unrealistic they are. In fact, you can actually laugh at them, despite the movie taking these scenes so seriously. It tries to sell itself or pawn itself off as some realistic, gritty take on WWI (and it "almost" succeeds, and it does hit the mark at scarce moments), but you can't help but notice that simultaneously it also feels like some kind of unrealistic action movie with maybe Schwarzenegger as its lead since the main actor has laughable plot armor on him.
Does it suffice for a new war movie for 2019? Sure, if you want to see a new war movie, then this will give you that genre. And yes, the cinematography is undeniably well-done and at times a marvel to look at. But if you actually stand this movie up against the true great war movies, it really is nothing special. It had a couple of good scenes and traits, but overall it's just not that good.
Forget about SPRyan comparisons. It's not even close to that. But for a WWI movie, to even compare it to Atonement in terms of quality would be stretching it; it doesn't have any depth like that does.
4/10