Doesn't live up to critics or commercials.

Rating: 2/10 (4 January 2018)

When I heard that Dunkirk was this (now past) years must see WWII movie, I was excited to see the famous Battle of Dunkirk take place. The advertisements portrayed a losing battle where British soldiers were forced back to the beach head and pilots scrambling to take down bombers and German fighters. What we got was a movie taking place after overwhelming defeat over 3 time lines before the evacuation of 400,000 troops from Dunkirk. Most of the movie is spent following a small group of soldiers wait on a beach head trying to either get bombed or get on a ship and get bombed. The other (more exciting) part is spent watching two pilots, one portrayed by Tom Hardy, struggling to protect the sitting ducks on the beach.
The description states that the British troops have their backs at the beach and are surrounded, instead it is 400,000 British troops standing in lines doing nothing for an hour and forty five minutes. The movie lacks direction, and except for Hardy's character no other soldiers are actually doing anything. There is no real sense of urgency, and since there were no scenes of the combat against the Germans to depict just how overwhelming the Germans were, you begin to wonder why they are just standing there. 400,000 doing nothing. Without a clear sense of defeat and urgency, this movie is a long yawn and doesn't live up to the hype. Watch a documentary instead...