A unique creation

Rating: 8/10 (30 March 2014)

What I find awesome about this film is that it is first and foremost a pretty cool action and drama movie. I am going to look for more Kubrik's war movies because the scenes of the fighting between troops looked like camera footage from an actual war. The situation inside the warplanes is also shot seriously. Also, despite the occasional comedic situation, the characters are playing it relatively straight throughout most of the film and you can sense some real tension in what happens to them.
This relatively serious approach makes humor all the more striking, like when the tune of "The ants go marching" starts playing. Dr. Strangelove is not really a comedy in the standard understanding. There are no punchlines. The humor instead comes from the overall silliness of the situation and the "jokes" are subtle. It is still a really interesting thing to see.
The only thing is that the scenes showing the planes flying are surprisingly really bad. I know they can do better. I have seen Russians make war movies immediately after the war that had better looking flying planes. It's so bad in fact that I think it was done on purpose.
Anyway, I really recommend this one. It holds the test of time quite well and its underlying messages are still relevant as they are more about people in general than about the nuclear scare of the cold war. It has good high level cast (of its time) and well done, Kubrick, RIP.