An immersive and authentic mess

Rating: 7/10 (30 July 2017)

When one of the most acclaimed directors and score composers join forces again you would expect only a masterpiece to come out of it.
But let's ignore the Nolan and Zimmer label for a minute and review the movie as it is.
The movie does an impressive job in immersion with Nolan's decision to uphold authenticity with real aircraft, ships and vehicles and fantastic sound design.
But the problem with this movie was it's lack of depth or scale and was even more diminished with its jumbled mess of a script and scenes.
The movie underwhelms the true force of the Germans and the formidable Luftwaffe in the early stages of the war to say the least, and failed to portray the true powerhouse and fear the soldiers were facing.
The characterisation was extremely poor and it was almost impossible to form any emotional attachment or even sympathise with any of the characters. The few words spoken in the movie could be partly to blame but wasn't the main reason. It was the characters lack of reaction to the harsh situations presented to them that made them less believable. On the other hand, Mark Rylance who played the sailor of the small vessel was the star of the movie and played his part perfectly. Harry Styles performed well despite being his debut and should have been given more of an opportunity to develop his character but this was extremely difficult due the lack of dialogue.
The dogfight scenes were exhilarating to see and became tense at times but this tension was often short lived. The lack of available authentic German aircraft was apparent in the movie which is where CGI could have been implemented.
The soundtrack for the movie was far from Hans Zimmers best and was generic with no memorable melodies but the sound of repetitive ticking and noises. Although the ticking mirrored the lack of time for the allies to evacuate, there was still room for Hans Zimmer to represent the awe and disaster of the situation but he failed to utilise this opportunity.
All in all, from a world class director and composer I expected a lot more.