The Most Hyped And Disappointing Film Of Recent Times?

Rating: 4/10 (26 December 2017)

I came to this expecting to see a masterpiece,as trumpeted by various critical writings and Kermode on the B.B.C..It's not.It started off well but once the central character,at least from the point of view of the British Army, reaches the beach it goes down hill.There is zero character development which results in myself,for one, having no particular investment in any of the characters.The Army personnel featured are universally a bunch of wasters,which is not the case for the majority who maintained their discipline and espirit de corps(read any of the numerous written works on the subject(or download them to your tablet if holding a real book is too tiring).The R.A.F. sequences are a bit better until the end where the Tom Hardy denoument is laughably bad.You might accept this junk in a comic book(sorry,graphic novel) adaptation but not when you're depicting what a real life piece of equipment can do.Can't say more without a spoiler,but anyone over 40 who knows anything about real aircraft will get my meaning.
Finally,I would have preferred C.G.I. for the Royal Navy sequences but what we get is a couple of modern R.N. ships bedecked with painted plywood disguises for the superstructure-really laughably bad,although the small boat sequence with Mark Rylance did have some dramatic affect.I could have done without the rather pointless Cillian Murphy character .
In short the film is a computer game with some real people shoehorned in for the Playstation generation..Don't get sucked into spending a fortune to see it.Wait until the DVD comes out,watch it and then give it to the local charity shop.Watch the 1958 telling of the story with John Mills and Richard Attenborough in which you do have empathy for the lads in the platoon and for Bernard Lee,Attenborough and their crew,unless of course black and white films hurt your delicate little eyes..For a more detailed account of the rescue there is an excellent 3 part mini series Docudrama which is really worth seeing.