Only gets two stars because...

Rating: 2/10 (11 December 2018)

...it isn't Nolan's worst film.
Where to begin? This was an all-star crew of filmmakers - cinematographer, vfx producer, sound designers and mixers, composer, producers, and yet somehow Nolan managed to undermine them all.
I think the intent was to show the human side of the event by giving us, I suppose, three vignettes of individual stories. And at that it (sort of) works. It's at least a good idea for a film, even if it's completely botched by cinematography that spends more time being artistic than serving the story.
Music is a powerful part of cinema and it's very apparent here because the score is literally the only thing that stirred any emotion in me at any point - when it wasn't making my entire body physically hurt. Maybe that was the point? To emulate the stress of actually being in combat? If so it's well executed.
The actors did their very best to make you care about them but they're fighting the script every step of the way. They're given nothing to work with: at no point is a first name revealed, nor are we given any solid reason to care about any of them, no relatable moments; unless I suppose you've had a head injury, been shot or bombed, or swam the English Channel.
The lack of dialog and overabundance of score combined with the lack of plot, almost non-linear narrative, and dependence on pretty cinematography make the whole thing feel more like an art film. Which is nice but if you want to make experimental cinema don't call it Dunkirk and sell it as a war film.
Nolan has in the past given us excellent sound design, brilliant mixing, a good score, great dialog, and cinematography that doesn't get in the way of the story - sometimes more than one at a time. This film fails on almost every point.
It could have been worse though. It could have been Interstellar - a film with its head so far up its own a#! that it's nearly unwatchable even once.