Like a 99-minute computer game cut scene. Without CGI.

Rating: 1/10 (26 July 2017)

SPOILER ALERT: The Germans won this bit of WWII.
Tawdry rubbish. Summed up by the modern train carriages the 'soldiers' board at the end.
Saving Private Ryan's famous opening scene had you flinching and wincing at the succession of gory death scenes without letup; you never had time to worry about WHO was getting butchered. In order to stretch exactly that sort of thing writ large with ships and planes to an hour-and-a-half, Christopher Nolan has had to allow some kind of characterization to happen. The suspense occurs in that you never know whether the character you're looking at (I'm sick of Steadicam btw) is going to last another few minutes or not. This movie is for the generation that has grown up with live, amateur disaster footage.
This is a terrible way to inspire any kind of identification with the characters; everyone is expendable, and none of them are drawn in any depth whatsoever. A little vulnerability here, a little courage there, but after half an hour of this all that's left is the spectacle of violent, horrible death. And Kenneth 'No-Lips' Branagh practicing for when he inevitably does Churchill. (The English politician, not the car insurance bulldog. I won't be advance booking).
This is why 'Dunkirk' resembles a series of computer game action scenes cut together. You're just waiting for the next one to find out if anything happens. And the music, sorry, the synthetic drone that goes on throughout (what happened to war movie themes?) adds to that sensation. No development, no change in mood - apart from stealing 'Nimrod' from Elgar (a cliché, by the way) - and in the end, no surprises apart from unexpected death. The whole movie feels synthetic, ie artificial, instead of engaging your deeper emotions.
It's technically interesting - I wouldn't say 'impressive' - and may look authentic compared to 'traditional' war films, but it's actually just as false, and has less emotional involvement.