Masterful but not a Masterpiece

Rating: 8/10 (22 July 2017)

I'm a huge Nolan fan. I've watched everything he's ever done multiple times. I've been looking forward to this movie so much, and I definitely enjoyed it.
The story itself is worthy of being explored in a film: 400,000 British soldiers are stranded at Dunkirk, repeatedly being hammered by the enemy. If I recall correctly, they didn't show any German soldiers or even say the word Germans or anything like that. Regardless, the antagonist's presence is still powerful and terrifying. We've all seen and heard enough about the evil Nazis at this point in our collective culture to understand the threat they pose.
I loved how there was basically no back story for any of the characters. The movie starts, and the threat is immediate. It grabbed me from the beginning.
I loved the way it was filmed. The expansive shots combined with claustrophobic spaces made for a totally unique war movie. In fact, I've never seen anything that gave me the feeling it did. I had a sense of the geography of everything.
That being said, this wasn't my favorite Nolan movie. I was tense at certain moments, but I wasn't on the edge of my seat, literally getting adrenaline rushes because I was so afraid someone was going to die. I wasn't as emotionally involved as I wanted to be.
I also had a lot of trouble understanding what people were saying. The effects and score were so loud I couldn't comprehend about 40% of what the characters were saying, especially Tom Hardy and the other pilots.
My boyfriend thought it was the greatest war movie he's ever seen. Personally, Saving Private Ryan and Apocalypse Now are still my favorites.
But, let's be real: I'd cut off limbs to be able to write something like Dunkirk. Nonetheless, the emotion and suspense just wasn't there for me.