So Disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (6 January 2018)

The aerial sequences were very well filmed and realistic. I'm afraid that is all the positive comment I have to offer. The beaches laughable by their emptiness. Three hundred thousand saved? The impression was that if they had got three hundred off they would have been lucky. Christopher Nolan seemed fixated by a few spectacular disaster scenes and the rest filled in anyhow - never mind historical inaccuracies or anachronisms which were abundant. And then the plot, such as it was - parts of it corny and unbelievable melodrama. Tricks with the timing? Nothing special, the three scenarios could be view in isolation without worrying about the clock.
The 1958 Leslie Norman movie with John Mills and Richard Attenborough - a tried and well-proved WW2 movie combination - gave a far more realistic and highly believable representation of what actually took place. But being much closer in time to the actual event, Norman needed to be much more careful with so many actual participants in the potential audience, and the advisors had all survived the horrors of that beach. If you have a military or historical interest in Dunkirk, this is the movie to watch.
There is also a very good French film 'Weekend at Zuydcoote (Dunkirk)' directed by Henry Verneul and starring the great Jean Paul Belmondo. It is based on a book by Robert Merle who was actually rescued by the British from the Dunkirk Beaches.
Either of the latter two films recommended but Nolan - Oh dear, you can do so much better.