Hope, is a dangerous weapon

Rating: 10/10 (21 July 2017)

Christopher Nolan's latest film Dunkirk undoubtedly serves up to the audiences' expectation for another epic film under the Nolan name, following The Dark Knight (2008) and Interstellar (2014). Nolan accurately tells the story of Dunkirk during WWII without any hold backs. Intense, thrilling yet hopeful and optimistic, Nolan shows the side of humanity that is rarely shown in other action or war movies with the exception of Saving Private Ryan (1998), which may just be the closest comparison.
The cruelty of war, the fragility of lives are accurately shown with the 70mm IMAX camera; anything could happen, anyone could be dead. There are no superheroes such as superman to come and save the day. Stunning visuals with real airplanes and ships and little to none use of CGI place the audiences right in the center of the on-going war, or evacuation on the beach of Dunkirk. Nolan arranges this intense war thriller with three different aspects: land, air, and water. All of which are then are intercepted by one another in an almost linear time line. Nolan attempts another Memento (2000) time line but at some point in the film, it brought the audience confusion in a war film that could be better interpreted with a linear time line that is commonly used in a major action event which is also what the audiences are used to.
Several themes are explored in the film as mentioned above, and it shows how brilliant Nolan is that he is able to pull it off and place all of them within a single war thriller that is around two hours long (which makes it one of his shortest films). Nolan achieves his goal with Dunkirk and the movie itself should be viewed by anyone interested in a thrilling and intense war masterpiece: in the water, in the air, on the beach of Dunkirk.