A walking simulator of a movie.

Rating: 3/10 (14 January 2020)

Movies are a condensed version of real life; this movie is real life itself. As such it is mostly mundane and boring. It is like watching a live-stream of somebody as he or she journeys through the streets of New York in order deliver some bagels to grandma. Although the camera work and filming are amazing! Top notch! If you however, find the characters rather lacking in depth or you're unable to connect with them emotionally or intellectually, you click away, you click "cat videos" instead. This is my main gripe with 1917, although the filming is splendid, the characterization is severely lacking, the character arch is nonexistent. The characters don't change; they were the same at the beginning of the movie till the end. This is a true plot driven story instead of a character driven story. And the plotting by the way is quite slow with a few plot holes I might add, how can it be anything else but slow? The story is lacking in depth and breath. It's basically a get from A to B video game type story; as such it is very predictable. There is only so much you can do with this type of filming, and once the technical oddity or marvel of one long continuous shot (although there were a few cuts) wears off you realize the emperor has no clothes, no characterization, and a very simple story arch. This is a 10 minute movie or 2 hour long documentary/live-stream. This reminds me of a movie with all the great special effects of light sabers, star destroyers, and Jar Jar Binks but with muted and flat characters. The sugar quickly wears off and you're left wanting something more substantive.