Myeh....

Rating: 3/10 (30 July 2017)

Went to see DUNKIRK a few days ago. It's taken me that long to put my reaction to it into words. Fair warning; probably this whole review has some level of spoiler in the wording so consider this your spoiler alert.
Firstly, let me point out that I eagerly awaited this movie. Unfortunately, my thoughts at the end were, "Well, it's a typical British movie." In that, several subplots just started in the middle and ended in the middle. Case in point, no explanation given to how the school chum of the boat owner's kid got into the act of being at the dock to jump on board or why.
For that matter, there really wasn't much character development from start to finish which left the whole movie seeming to be pretty shallow and meaningless.
And, the whole Air:1 hour, Sea:1 day, Land:1 week thing just fell flat. There was no explanation of that whole flow at the beginning or throughout so the audience was just left to figure it out – or not. And, there really wasn't much credible attempt to tie them all together by the end of the movie. there were several occasions where the same event was suddenly and seemingly out of sequence relived from a different character's perspective. This left the audience thinking "Wait! I'm confused. Didn't that guy already die/that ship already sink/that airplane already go down?" So the audience had to figure out the "reliving" thing all on their own which risked the audience not connecting the events correctly.
That whole "last Spitfire" thing was an abomination to the point of being insulting to anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of aircraft, aerodynamics, physics, etc. Firstly, I thought the damned thing was gonna glide so long after running out of fuel that the pilot was going to need an "expect further clearance" time. And to think that an aircraft that's ran out of gas could be capable of superior aerial combat over an enemy aircraft is just downright absurd. The burning Spitfire thing at the end - to prevent it from falling into enemy hands - was fine and factual except that the obvious lack of an engine in the fire and instead a big broomstick was holding up the propeller was a joke.
Overall, this whole flick just seemed incredibly shallow. Like an attempt to be artsy that just fell flat.
About the only benefit to me seeing this movie was the new perspective to the Dunkirk evacuation that the troops evacuated may have left the beach more than once (as different ships were sunk out from under them) before finally reaching England.