Brilliantly hyped up as usual for a Nolan flick except for the sheer of joy of SFX less cinematography

Rating: 5/10 (1 August 2017)

Seeing this flick on a wide screen theater and the charisma of WW2 was supposed to be a thrilling ride for me. But, it turned out to be an ordinary affair. The positives: ultra realistic 35mm shot, devoid of any visible special effects, shot from 3 different perspectives was indeed a brilliant piece of cinematography. The negatives: Too many. Firstly, there is none of the breathtaking thrills of Saving Private Ryan to which it is constantly compared to at the moment. Secondly, the story is wafer thin, it could have easily been made as a short 20 minute documentary with all its intended effects. Thirdly, the narration is skewed, land/air/sea scenes are deliberately shown 3 times making it a monotonous and irritating viewing at times. Fourth point: The set pieces look ordinary as i just cant compare it to the gigantic mass evacuation of 200000+ British soldiers to UK with just 100's shown on the screen. The arrangement is a drab affair for a epic scale as this. Fifth point: Most of the cast look washed, non-charismatic, very less screen time, sans basic emotion and simply ordinary. Noteworthy exceptions are obviously Harry Styles and the masterful Mark Rylance. Ken Bran looks comical with his pencil grin.
Overall, this is a decent WW2 movie muddled with repetitive scenes with no depth in characters made by a visionary director with a speck of vision bundled in to a boring plot (pun intended as it could have made with a brilliant opening scene and a climax to match it). Finally, to my utmost relief, this movie need not be watched many times to understand its simple simplicity as is the case for Nolan's earlier multi-layered flicks.