Lots of noise but lack of scale

Rating: 5/10 (5 August 2017)

Oh dear, where to begin? I expect that this film will now become the defining 'history' of Dunkirk for young people, many of whom probably confuse it with D-Day anyway. The big problem is that it lacks scale. The director wanted to avoid using CGI but as a result the beaches look like an out-of-season Morecambe, as someone put it. To be fair, he would have needed the combined manpower of the present-day British, French and German armies to replicate the scenes of 1940. And where were the vast quantities of trucks, guns and equipment destroyed by the army and abandoned on the beaches? Instead we were given half a dozen old lorries, fewer than you'd see in a scrapyard.
Then the fabled 'armada of little ships' hove into view – with no more than about six to eight boats forming a pathetically small flotilla. At least Nolan managed to get weekend skipper Mark Rylance's dress right for the period – collar and tie.
But he got it badly wrong for the troops being rescued. In the publicity still of the men gathered on the mole (jetty) they look as though they have popped out of an Airfix kit, with freshly painted helmets and uniforms straight from the QM's store. Not a dented, scarred or missing helmet, and not a missing or bloodied battledress blouse. No helmet straps worn over the brim and no other headgear (forage caps or berets) visible. No bandages or slings, just everyone in parade-ground order.
Interestingly, Kenneth Branagh managed to stay stubble-free after seven days non-stop directing operations on the mole.
I'll end there, except to note that when the men travelled back to London by train they did so in brightly-upholstered carriages that bore no resemblance to the brown-hued trains that I remember from the '50s and '60s, let alone those of the '30s which would still have been in use in the 1940s.