The best thing about Dunkirk is that it ends.

Rating: 3/10 (23 July 2017)

When I first read about the Dunkirk Evacuation, I was in awe- and the possibilities of exploiting and furthering this particular emotion were boundless in Nolan's 'Dunkirk'. Unfortunately, this movie falls embarrassingly short of its promise. Let's start with the positives.
-The acting: In my view, any great war film needs to not just have great characters, but also great ACTORS to portray those characters. In this aspect, Dunkirk shines. The acting is brilliant, as can be expected when your cast features the likes of Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Sir Mark Rylance and Harry Styles(?). There isn't a moment when any character exhibits an emotion out- of-the-ordinary, and there isn't a single actor in the film that falls short of acting talent or ability.
-The music: Contrary to a lot of other people, I actually quite enjoyed the background score- the theme of foreshadowing, which is at the center of the movie's premise, is brilliantly explored in the score.
Now, to the (rather long) list of negatives:
-Redundancy and repetitiveness: As you've probably heard already, Dunkirk's story is told through three perspectives/timelines: The mole (aka land), The sea, and The air. Unfortunately, while this idea holds enormous promise, it only results in redundancy and confusion. There are times in the movie when it is unclear through whose perspective the story is being told, and there are times when scenes become repetitive. This is particularly apparent in the scenes shot in the air. Maybe this was intentional, and if it was, Nolan succeeded here. To me, it just seemed like poor editing and confused direction. This results in the movie seeming exceedingly long for its 1 hour 45 minutes run-time.
-The inability to convey the scale of the evacuation: This, for me, was perhaps the most blatant flaw in this movie. You would think after a $150 million budget and the sheer scale of the actual evacuation itself that the movie would truly convey the likely thousands of ships/boats that were involved. This is just not the case. Throughout the film, we probably see maybe ~10 planes and about 20-30 boats/ships. This, in my view, does not do justice to the miracle of the evacuation, and greatly detracts from the promise this film initially had.
-The emotionless characters: This, in my view, is the biggest problem with Dunkirk. The thing is, there just isn't enough dialogue, there isn't any background on ANY of the soldiers that makes you empathize with them. The consequence of this is that when a semi-major or major character dies, you don't feel anything. Really, all you think is: Well, I've already seen 100s of random soldiers die anyways, why is this different? Again, maybe this was intentional, maybe the point was to trivialize the deaths of even major characters to the point that they are no different from any of the other deaths. I personally didn't enjoy it very much.
All in all, Dunkirk is a film with a lot of promise, and an incredible potential for awe-inspiring characters and story lines. However, its weak character development, and lack of ability to truly convey the enormity of the Dunkirk Evacuation ultimately lead to its downfall, and result in a film that inspires neither empathy nor awe. Very disappointing.