Brilliant attention to detail but not that entertaining!

Rating: 5/10 (6 January 2018)

Review:
This is another movie from Christopher Nolan, which plays with time, and you have to use your head to piece it together. It portrays an evacuation from 3 different perspectives, land, sea and air, during the fall of France in 1940. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have retreated to Dunkirk, and a young British private, Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), is the sole survivor of a German ambush. The movie then follows his amazing journey to reach home, whilst being under severe attack, which kills many soldiers. While all this drama is happening at sea, a small fishing boat is trying to make his way to Dunkirk, so it can help to get some of the survivors back home but the captain Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) doesn't have a smooth ride, due to a wounded soldier that he saved along the way. Meanwhile, Farrier (Tom Hardy), is in the air trying to fight off all of the planes that are trying to destroy the soldiers below but he is also fighting for his life, due to low fuel and no support. I found this movie quite interesting, and cleverly put together but as there isn't much dialogue, and it takes some time to get going, I did find it quite boring in parts. Don't get me wrong, I totally respect Nolan for taking on an important period of English history but I found it quite hard to follow, especially with all of the different time shifts in the storyline. The acting was realistic, and the cinematography was truly amazing but like Inception and Memento, which were also directed by Christopher Nolan, you have to watch it a few times before you truly understand and appreciate his vision. Anyway, from an entertainment point of view, I have seen better and I can't help feeling that my expectations wasn't fully satisfied but it's still worth a watch, especially as Nolan doesn't release movies that often. Watchable!
Round-Up:
Christopher Nolan, 47, has made some excellent movies to date, and his attention to detail is second to none. He first hit the spotlight in 2000 with Memento, which was a unique movie that was ahead of its time, and in 2002 he brought you Insomnia starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams. In 2005 he put all of his energy into the Batman franchise, bringing you Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and the Dark Knight Rises. In between those movie he directed the Prestige and the brilliant Inception, which I still don't understand, and then he made Interstellar in 2014. He was also the executive producer for Man of Steel, Transcendence Batman vs. Superman and Justice League, so he's been fairly busy, even though he carefully picks what projects to work on. He is definitely a unique director who gives every aspect of a movie much thought, and he directs his movies from an audience point of view. Personally, it does seems like you need a degree to appreciate his final product, and after watching the bonus disk of Dunkirk, his depth is way beyond your everyday director. Although I wasn't that excited about this movie, I still think that Nolan is a terrific director.
Budget: $100million
Worldwide Gross: $525.5million
Genre: Action, Drama, History, War
Cast: Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, James D'Arcy, Cillian Murphy and Harry Styles. 5/10