Dunkirk: 9.0

Rating: 9/10 (18 April 2018)

One of the criticisms of Dunkirk is that it is devoid of emotion or characters, and I'd have to disagree with those criticisms. Dunkirk is a fast paced experiential movie that delivers action, suspense, and emotion. In terms of characters and character development it was basic, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The movie focuses on the characters as much as it can without losing the full thrill experience. The actors playing the characters like Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Barry Keoghan, and Kenneth Branagh put in very moving performances across the board. All with their own character arcs that all induce different forms of tears. Barry Keoghan's George inducing the most. The score is very heart-beating and immerses you into the movie experience like a head being pushed in water. The clock ticking puts a layer of suspense under the entire film that prohibits you from being taken out of the story, and the Shepard tones increase that suspense indefinitely. The music is one of the biggest strengths in the film, but at the cost of being too loud in some dialogue scenes. Causing characters words to be drowned out. When it comes to narrative it's brilliantly structured to produce almost a funneling effect. Over the course of the story this funneling effect slowly increases intensity to the max. Until the very end when the effect turns in reverse to allow for a very epic and powerful ending. Overall, Dunkirk is a speedy thrill ride told in a unique manner, and it's speed doesn't take away from some exceptional moving moments. So I give it a 9.0