Dunkirk. Really?

Rating: Null/10 (30 December 2017)

Well, I've finally seen "Dunkirk". Like most my first impression was one of awe. I was particularly impressed with the dog fight scene.In most movies the planes get a bead on the enemy plane and blast it out of the sky. This showed that it is not that easy. The plane is bobbing around like a cork and you have the enemy plane doing his maneuvers so most times a hit may even be impossible. Then later started to think there was something missing from the movie In my search to find out more about this conflict I came across this documentary, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcX8NvJPOFc. It was while watching this that it came to me what was missing in the movie. It was reality. The opening scenes of the young Brit soldiers walking through the French village stands out. The buildings were pristine, not one brick out of place, no rubble and just flyers floating down. It's a known fact that at this time France was going through hell and a lot of towns and villages were hit. The other thing that I picked up in this doco was the troops on shore were being attacked by waves of 50 to 100 German Stukas. In the movie you only see 2 or 3. The thing Nolan seemed to be proud of was that most of his FX were practical and he did not rely on CGI. While this is indeed an achievement in itself I feel there were parts where CGI wouldn't have gone amiss. It was admitted that they use cardboard cutouts to enhance the number of soldiers waiting on the sure.Photo Shopping was used and massive printers. The easy answer, and cheaper, option would have been to use matts. This is a method whereby images are painted on a glass plate and placed in front of the camera.
As far a performances where concerned I did not see anything that really stood out.