Seriously Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (26 July 2017)

Considering that Christopher Nolan wrote Inception and that was a technical masterpiece and an intelligent script, this film is a major let down from that movie. I like the concept of retelling one of the most major rescues in the history of civilization, but it could have been much better than this one. There are a few problems with the film I saw, and some of them are major technical flaws.
I liked the telling of he same events from different eyes. What I did not care for was the sudden jolts from daytime scenes to night scenes which did not make any sense in telling the story that happened during the first 3/4's of the film. Somehow, day should have been day and night should have been night. Take that and the going from Spitfires in the air in daylight straight to night sequences, and the continuity of the film becomes wrecked for me as a viewer.
Then there is the sequence of the men getting into the beached ship to wait for the tide to come in. There is almost no logic in this one. Hiding inside a ship waiting like sitting ducks is just not logical. When the ship starts getting used for target practice and they just stay in the boat like sitting ducks is just plain stupid. The sequence is even less logical than the long sequence inside the tank in the WW2 film FURY done a few short years ago.
There is little story in this as the director (Nolan) has very little dialogue in the first half of the film. While the film as a whole does make the history clear of the desperation of the situation, and the rescue, it could have been done much more spectacularly with the advent of CGI. The number of private ships actually shown coming into Dunkirk to rescue 300,000 troops is much too small. Without CGI, The Longest Day many years ago did a better job of creating an armada on screen than this film does.
The air combat scenes are great, but I am kind of curious why prop planes, Spitfire pilots, needed to wear oxygen masks on their faces? Most of the time these planes did not fly as high as jet fighters where such masks would be needed. Maybe it is to help the film maker here not allow the audience to get attached to any cast member. That goal this film certainly accomplishes. There are few women in the cast though Miranda Nolan, Christopher Nolans Cousin does make another appearance in his work, her 10th film role, as a nurse.
The main emotion displayed throughout the film is the patriotic cheering of people on the ground who seem to be able to see what is going on better than the film viewers. There is a lot of cheering for an army withdrawal of defeated soldiers just desperate to escape. With the exception of the opening sequence, most of the battle scenes are on the ocean. The Nazi Germans are almost invisible the entire film except for the German fighter and bomber planes in the air.
There is a lot of action drama here, and at the end the rescued are riding on a train and reading Churchill's most famous speech in the newspaper. "We shall never surrender." Considering the genius Nolan has shown in his other films, this one does not measure up on all the levels I have pointed out and more. Even the true Historian should be let down on how this one was told. The film has many technical flaws and needed to have a consultant to get the technical stuff right, but now that World War 2 is more than 70 years in our rear-view mirror, nearly 75 years since Dunkirk, those kind of people just are not around anymore.
I wish this film would have matched the advertising and hype, but if this truly the best film this summer, Hollywood is not having a good year at all. The emotions this film try to stir come up hollow.