Nonsensical vs. Nonlinear

Rating: 3/10 (23 July 2017)

Christopher Nolan's directorial style is described as nonlinear. The historical significance of this well-known World War II event apparently caused Nolan to make a movie with no discernible plot whatsoever, no story, no character development.
This mess is capped off with the worst sound I've heard in a movie in the last 10 years. I will acknowledge that I'm an aging movie fan; however, when no more than 25% of a movie's dialog is understandable – even at a modern theater – something is terribly wrong. The spoken words, most already with thick British accents, are virtually drowned out by a grindingly loud score, gun and cannon fire, explosions, and the sounds of war machines. Tom Hardy has a garbled delivery on his best acting day; with an oxygen mask and a wailing British Spitfire ever-present, the viewer is left to guess what he might be saying . . . AND HIS DIALOG IS SOME OF THE MOST UNDERSTANDABLE IN THE MOVIE!
Some of the plot, where there is any, is silly (it pains me to even use that word in conjunction with a discussion of such a momentous event in history). When fleeing soldiers discuss throwing one hapless Frenchman overboard to save a sinking – and relatively large – fishing trawler, I felt that I'd wandered into a teen flick. Frankly, some of the "hero" characters are simply unlikable, the two fleeing soldiers in particular.
Surely there was some saving grace, right? No, and don't for a minute compare this travesty to such fine war movies as "Saving Private Ryan", "The Pianist", or "Schindler's List". The horrible sound and missing plot are accompanied by flat, washed out color (no doubt begging for Oscar attention), frequently fuzzy focusing probably meaning something to egghead critics, flat and shallow acting without discernible emotion – even when a young boy is accidentally and tragically killed, and scenes that are SUPPOSED to fit together but do not, e.g., darkness in one, daylight in another, back and forth, ad nauseam.
Good reviews? Yep, tons of them, many by dutiful Nolan fans stepping up to point out that the rest of us are stupid, unable to understand movie art. Movies with lots of pre-release hype and critical acclaim make me nervous, but hey, it's a war movie, how bad can it be? Ans. Very bad.