Not a Masterpiece but Okay

Rating: 7/10 (19 August 2017)

Wow, all the hype about this movie. And as history buff (mostly WW1) I couldn't wait for Dunkirk. However, I kept waiting for the epic bit that makes the film memorable or classic. It never came. Not only was Dunkirk not an epic, it wasn't entirely historical either.
Missing were the French army defending the city which enabled the other some 330,000 to evacuate. Missing were epic radio speeches from Churchill. This, in my opinion, would have sent chills down the spines of audiences. Churchill was a masterful speaker with a command of the English language never before or since seen. And missing were the fleets of boats - yes there were maybe 50-75 boats of all sorts, but if you're going to use an airplane CGI scene, it's not a stretch to use CGI to show the armada of boats going back and forth, the ports of England to the beaches of Dunkirk.
Other goofs I noticed were a scene where it seemed obvious that this was the filmmakers water line of demarcation. In other words, you can see lots of boats to the right of the camera but zero boats to the camera's left. Very obvious though I'm not looking for miscues, I just want to be entertained in the way the Longest Day entertained. When the tiny ships did arrive there should have been hundreds of soldiers wading into the waters towards the little boats...nothing in the film but a single soldier going where - to swim to England?
Also missing and very noticeable were soldiers firing their rifles at the Luftwaffe. All those armed soldiers on the beach and nobody firing a single shot at attacking Luftwaffe dive bombers (in the film)? Doesn't seem believable that an armed soldier would just stand and watch an enemy fighter come down on him and his comrades.
Dunkirk was a lot more than queues waiting to be rescued. The French army (mostly French and some British) fought ferociously to keep the Germans away from the beaches. The city was mostly reduced to ruins.
In the end, some 330,000 soldiers were evacuated, of which roughly 35- 40% were French. Most of the French went back to fight the Battle of France while some 3000 stayed in England to become the Free French Forces. That was lost on the filmmakers.
This was the opportunity to make the next Longest Day film. It missed badly though it is still an okay film - very watchable. But never in the course of human events on film has so much been lost by so few - in Hollywood.