Dunkirk does have flaws but it is NOT "Overrated"

Rating: 9/10 (1 January 2018)

Dunkirk is easily one of the best War films ever made. Extremely tense, great acting, fantastic cinematography, massive attention to detail, REAL Spitfires and Warships (even if the warships are post-war), Realistic aerial scenes (except for one moment - which I will come on to later) and a very chilling and terrifying soundtrack.
However, despite this, the very high 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and that it is the highest grossing World War II film of all time, the film has been slammed with many negative reviews written by people who don't seem to have basic knowledge of film or history. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, at least give films a chance and watch with an open mind before reviewing them. In this review I am mainly going to explain why this film is not "overrated".
First of all, Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk is NOT a remake of the 1958 film and it is certainly not trying to copy Saving Private Ryan. Dunkirk is actually one of the first original and unique World War II film we've had since Saving Private Ryan, Nolan made it clear that he wanted to avoid trying to make his film similar to Saving Private Ryan, unlike the vast majority of World War II films we've had. Now Saving Private Ryan is a great film in it's own regard, but because it captured the brutality of War effectively does not mean that every war film should copy it. Most war films try to remake Saving Private Ryan's battle-scenes and even lifts some of it's scenes and techniques turning many of Saving Private Ryan's iconic moments into cliches. Most films have done this to such a degree that most people expect all War films to be 'another' Saving Private Ryan and compare all new war films to it as such. Dunkirk is one of the few films that takes a different path and breaks away from this formula. What's wrong with that?
One of the main areas of criticism that this film receives is the supposedly "empty beach". Yes the film does show only a few thousand soldiers on screen but that is because not all 400,000 soldiers were on the beach at the same time - some were still in the town, some had already been evacuated and others were helping the French to defend the rearguard. The beach at Dunkirk stretched for 16 miles and soldiers would have been spread all across the beach. Most of the soldiers were at the mole - and the mole in the film looks pretty packed to me. The film would never had shown all of the soldiers on the beach at once, the film was showing the evacuation from a certain perspective. If you were one of those soldiers at Dunkirk you would never have seen all 400,000 soldiers on the beach. This is backed up by real photographs of the evacuation - some photos show only a few hundred soldiers and very little equipment, most of the photos that you find are actually further away from the mole. Many of the chaotic photos are actually from the 1958 film and not the real evacuation itself, which may cause some confusion. Just because the film shows fewer soldiers than you may expect doesn't make the film terrible. Look at Saving Private Ryan for instance. Over 43,000 US soldiers participated in the Omaha beach landings yet the opening scene only shows a few thousand, that's because it was showing the Assault from a certain perspective and from a specific sector of the beach. Nearly every war film I see shows fewer soldiers than the actual number, this is due to budget reasons and for the reason I just mentioned
Another area which seems to gather criticism is the 'lack of character development'. While I can understand why some people found it hard to connect with the characters, the fact is you weren't really meant to. Christopher Nolan deliberately did this as he wanted to show the evacuation by events and visual detail rather than from an eyewitness account. Think about it as well, most soldiers would not have time to introduce themselves and many were not in the mood for chatting - they were trying to evacuate and survive after all. The film was also not trying to give a certain character any specialities and it was not trying to single out a 'hero'. The film was trying to portray them as ordinary soldiers - because that was what they were. The majority of British at Dunkirk were young, and mostly unknown men who were brought into war to do their bit. This is what I believe the film was trying to give us.
The other area where the film seems to be getting hate is the 'lack of action'. One of the most important events of the evacuation was the French army defending the rearguard while the evacuation took place. While it does show the French defence at the beginning their role was down-played in this film which is one of the few complaints I had. I felt could have been explored in more detail. Without their courage and sacrifice the evacuation would not have been the success it was. However, the focus of the film was about the British Soldiers on the beaches waiting for evacuation, the role of the 'little ships' and the RAF's brave attempts to hold the Luftwaffe at bay while the Evacuation took place. With the exception of the French Rearguard and the RAF air-battles, there was not much fighting at Dunkirk. Most of the British soldiers had to face Air attacks, U-Boat attacks and boredom as they waited. War is not always about combat and explosions happening every 30 seconds, there were some boring parts as-well. I even saw one reviewer who panned the film because there were no German soldiers shown. This is actually one of the most effective parts of the film. The fact that you don't see the Germans makes the film even more tense and frightening as most soldiers wouldn't have seen their enemy until they started shooting, you would have had no idea where they would be. The lack of Germans shown gives the impression of the Germans being a dangerous and terrifying opponent. This is also a common film technique, sometimes it is scarier when you don't see the danger - as was the case with Jaws.
Finally the last main complaint that everyone seems to have is the 'lack of realism' and 'historical accuracy'. Let's be clear the film was not meant to be a documentary and I don't mind films which fictionalise historical events as long as it honours the real event and Dunkirk certainly gets this right. One user complained that there were "not enough boat or planes and that CGI should have been used." Another even complained that the destroyer was not period. The destroyer was defiantly post-war, however it was modified it to look like a WWII British Destroyer. The fact that they used a real destroyer makes the film even more realistic, don't you think? Also not all planes and ships were at Dunkirk at once so of course you don't see a lot of them, keep in mind that they used over 60 Boats in the film, the most ever used in a film production. The fact that they used real Spitfires as well is one of the greatest things about this film. The planes behaved realistically and the cockpit scenes gave an accurate reflection of what it was like flying a Spitfire in 1940 and how difficult it was to fight in it, with the constant headshake and the draining fuel being taken into account. Yes the Spitfires did fire their guns in this film much longer than they did in real life, but this happens in every war film so this only a minor fault. While the dogfights did seem a little slower than actual dogfights this was because they were using real vintage aircraft and throwing them in such manoeuvres could risk damaging the aircraft or evens stalling them. I much rather see some real aircraft flying in a realistic manner than seeing lots of CGI ones performing physics-defining manoeuvres that even modern day jets would struggle to achieve (Don't get me started on Red Tails - they have Bf-109s and P-51s doing flipping backlips in mid air!). Now here comes the most 'hollywood' moment of the film, where Tom Hardy's Spitfire runs out of fuel and manages to turn around and shoot down a Ju-87 Stuka while losing very little altitude. Now I have read accounts of Spitfires managing to glide their aircraft for 15 minutes without fuel and the Spitfire was certainly not flying for more than 15 minutes - also remember the fact that they used real planes so they would have been forced to glide them at the same altitude for safety reasons. However, the fact that Tom Hardy shot down the bomber while out of fuel is certainly over-the-top and did ruin the flight sequences to a certain degree. However, this was the only ridiculous moment on the film, so I can live with it. Most War films are guilty of having Hollywood moments, Saving Private Ryan is no exception - so you can't pan Dunkirk for one silly moment while letting other War films off with it.
Dunkirk does have its flaws, but it is still an excellent film overall and it is definitely one of my favourite films of all time. If you are expecting Dunkirk to be another Saving Private Ryan, with big battles and lot's of patriotic music then you will be disappointing. So I advise watching this film with an open mind and forget Saving Private Ryan for once and treat films as their own. If you are into British history then you will enjoy this film. Most people who have criticised this film have done so mainly because they misunderstood the film, were expecting more action or simply hate it. Regardless, it is not Overrated and it deserves all the critical praise and box office success that it got and I hope it receives some Oscars.
One more thing - some of the guests to the films premier were actual Dunkirk Veterans, although they pointed out some errors they stated that overall it was an 'accurate depiction' of the Evacuation, a few of them were even brought to tears by the film. The fact that you have a 90+ year old veteran praising this film says it all.