Okay but underwhelming

Rating: 6/10 (11 January 2020)

April 1917, the Western Front. Two British soldiers are sent to deliver an urgent message to an isolated regiment. If the message is not received in time the regiment will walk into a trap and be massacred. To get to the regiment they will need to cross through enemy territory. Time is of the essence and the journey will be fraught with danger.
I had highish hopes for this movie. Written and directed by Sam Mendes, who gave us such superb films as American Beauty, Revolutionary Road, Road to Perdition and Jarhead, and massively hyped this looked like it should be one of the best war films to come out for a while. Turns out, it's not.
The plot is interesting enough but that's about it. 1917 doesn't go anywhere new, say anything profound or even provide a large amount of entertainment. It's an odyssey involving characters who are clumsily drawn and aren't particularly engaging, with some goodish action scenes that are few and far between. The military side is okay but not 100% plausible.
If you were hoping that this might be a confronting drama, showing the wastefulness of war, there's elements of that but it has been done before and done better and more jarringly. It's only confronting and profound if you've never watched a realistic war movie before, and even then it's probably not graphic or engaging enough to make a profound point regarding war.
Overall, it's okay, but not great, and quite disappointing.