A really well made film without character.

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2017)

This film is the best of the year? This is the one that will become a timeless classic?... I doubt it. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good film, well worth the price of admission. But there is one serious flaw that makes it difficult to call this a perfect 10/10.
Let's start with the best part of this film: the score. The musical score is fantastic. There's always a ticking sound in the background, throughout 90% of the film at least. When action draws closer, or the stakes suddenly rise, the score adds more music, but keeps the same beat. It really adds to the tension. Every second, every tick of that clock, is a moment these men are stuck in the danger zone. It might annoy some people, but for me it was very well done.
Another thing I really admired was the sound. Not the soundtrack, I mean the sounds of the war. Every gunshot, explosion, and fighter plane, all sounds incredibly loud and realistic. It doesn't sound like a standard action movie, it sounds serious. I wasn't even in the IMAX theater and it was so loud I almost covered my ears.
That being said, there's one (maybe 2) flaws that keep this from being perfect. The characters are somewhat forgettable. Everyone that the movie follows isn't given that much development. You've got the pilot guy, who is... flying a plane. You've got the beach boys who are... trying to get off the beach together. That's it. And there's the three people on a boat trying to save more people, but again, none of them have development. The person flying the plane could be swapped with the two boys trying to get off the beach and not a lot would change.
The other large issue is the issue of maturity. This is a war zone, with lots of guns, explosions, even oil fires that burn the skin of the soldiers towards the end of the film. Yet shockingly it's rated PG-13. There's no blood, severed limbs, and disfigured victims. We see people carrying away the wounded, but they don't look wounded. They look like they've got some ketchup spilled on their chest. There's even a scene where the two boys look at a bunch of corpses from a recent bomb raid, and none of the corpses are missing any appendages or are bloody in the slightest. They were literally just bombed! This guy over here would be missing an arm, that guy would be missing a leg, and blood would be all over that beach. When the oil fire starts (Two-Face flashbacks... wait, that movie and this movie have the same director! It all makes sense now...), nobody is burning, despite being in the fire. They don't even get the Two-Face treatment.
This film is very well made. There's a lack of dialogue, and you just sit there on the edge of your seat hoping that these guys get out of this situation alive. My general advice is go see it, not in IMAX unless you want permanent ear damage, don't get attached to the men you see, and bless up to Chris Nolan. It's worth every penny.