This movie could have waited for Red Box

Rating: 9/10 (24 July 2017)

I had been waiting to see "Dunkirk" for months & planned on seeing it on 21 July, the opening night. Rarely does Hollywood put out a movie that I'm willing to see right away, but "Dunkirk" looked like a fantastic movie.
What a letdown; I was so disappointed. The trailers made it look so exciting. I mean, how could it be otherwise? The Battle of Dunkirk was perfect movie material: in the spring of 1940, over 300,000 British & French soldiers were trapped on the beaches around Dunkirk, making them sitting ducks for the Germans. The British military called for civilians w/boats to sail across the English Channel to Dunkirk to pick up as many men as possible & bring them to larger ships, as the larger ships could not make it to the beach- -and they succeeded. Surely an event worthy of a movie on a grand scale.
Unfortunately, the trailers showed the best parts of the movie; everything else was a letdown. Not a lot of dialogue (which could barely be heard above the background noise) and little to no character development, which I consider essential to any movie. I swear Kenneth Branagh--one of the best actors in the world--did not have more than a few lines. Neither did Cillian Murphy or Tom Hardy, both great actors. Only Mark Rylance had a decent speaking part. There was not an opportunity to get to know the characters in the movie, what kind of men they were or personalities they had, what they might be thinking or feeling in their horrendous situation. Nolan never gives you a chance because it's the focus of the movie seems to be everything but the characters themselves.
And the film was disjointed & lacked continuity. Of course all aspects of the battle had to be shown: from the air, from the sea, from the land, so jumping from Mark Rylance in his boat to Tom Hardy in his fighter/bomber and Fionn Whitehead on the beach was necessary. BUT you couldn't always tell when anything was happening. At one point it was nighttime at Dunkirk; you could see the fires & the lights on the beach. Then you'd see Tom Hardy in his plane or Mark Rylance on his boat--in broad daylight. Why? What time of the day was it? I thought it was night. If it's nighttime on Dunkirk then it's nighttime in the air & on the Channel, but we never see that. The events seemed out of order.
Chris Nolan is a good director, but he could have done so much more. There should have been more character development so you could get to know these men better & empathize w/them & their situation, thereby becoming more involved in the movie. But he did not do that.
My mom had wanted to see this movie (she's almost 80 & hasn't been to a movie in years). I told her to wait until it comes to Red Box and watch it. I mean, it's not a bad movie; just not as good as it should have been. It's not so much a war movie as it is Chris Nolan's version of a war movie.