Dunkirk: What happened to honest film criticism?

Rating: Null/10 (31 December 2017)

The greatest reward reaped from watching Dunkirk was my rediscovery of film critic, Peter Rainer. His review of Dunkirk displays intelligence and probing honesty. He scored Dunkirk 67 out of 100.
Any film critic who gave Dunkirk a rating of 75 or higher is now on my Burn before Reading watchlist. Critics who scored Dunkirk at 100 are delusional.
At the Oscars, I wonder whether Hollywood will parade Dunkirk in front of us as a triumph in movie making. What a travesty that would be - especially when one considers the real heroics and enormous human cost at Dunkirk. Nolan's movie barely scratches the surface of the evacuation and what it meant to the world. The choppy use of piecemeal vignettes to capture individual stories (that don't even feel real) cripples the film to the point that it has little impact at all. Nolan fails to instill a deep appreciation of the men and women who evacuated 330,000 souls from France in June 1940.
At Dunkirk, tens of thousands of Allied and German soldiers lost their lives. Thousands of pieces of military equipment were lost. Many thousands of British and French troops were captured and later murdered or abused for the duration of the war. Nolan's Dunkirk sporadically focuses on three fighter planes, a few ships, one civilian boat, two wannabe deserters and a civilian vessel grounded in the sand at low tide. What Nolan intended to achieve is beyond me. What critics want us to believe borders on the incomprehensible. It's all a waste of everyone's time. No real story, no larger context, no real characters, no real emotion, no... shall I go on?
Aside from my frustration with the stillborn Dunkirk, my primary complaint is with critics who fail so miserably to offer intelligent reviews of a movie that begs for serious criticism. Has film criticism become a scamming of the public?
How were MetaCritic scores of 100 amassed for Dunkirk? Does the studio strong-arm a handful of "leading" critics into raving about a movie and then flush up an avalanche of lemming-like reviews? Are movie critics in collusion with directors and studios? Something in the world of film criticism is pathetically amiss.
I've regained respect for movie reviews offered by film lovers. Movie buffs may not make a living rating movies, but we aren't idiots (unless, of course, we bought a BluRay copy of Dunkirk). Millions of movie goers have been led like sheep to the Dunkirk box office by critics who shouldn't be allowed to guide us to a public restroom.
I think I'll go watch a foreign film for relief...