Like watching a group of unenthusiastic amateur war re-enactors...

Rating: 1/10 (14 December 2017)

...you know when you watch some small scale re-enactment of some famous battle portrayed in a small bleak field that the cows have been hastily cleared out of after being given a flyer in a pub and thinking 'Why not, might be a laugh'. Except going into something like that you don't expect anything amazing, you know they aren't spending a lot on it and you're happy with just a few puffs of smoke and someone chucking fireworks around. They're just doing the best they can and it's at least interesting to watch for half an hour.
That's this film in a nutshell except with $100M chucked at it and it is honestly puzzling where that money possibly went. There's no dramatic shots of hundreds of thousands of soldiers cowering on the beach amongst all the abandoned vehicles and equipment whilst coming under hellish fire and no epic shots of hundreds of ships lining up to desperately get them off the beach. No, what we get is 2% of that scene without any CGI to fill in the gaps. A small group of soldiers on a pristine beach with a few boats and planes chucked in and about as much action, drama and suspense as a kid's school play.
Not only does this totally fail to capture the horror of Dunkirk or properly portray the story but it is just a complete mystery how something that looks this amateur possibly cost $100M to make. For reference here: Saving Private Ryan cost $70M and was made almost 20 years ago when special effects were far more basic, Black Hawk Down cost $92M in 2001, Hacksaw Ridge only $40M in 2016 and the Siege of Jadotville I can't even find information for (probably because it was so low budget). All of these films not only made for dramatic visual spectacles and incredible stories (even if some took many liberties on the truth) but they also truly showed how horrific war is. Dunkirk just makes it look like a day at the beach with a little minor peril thrown in. Even the short Dunkirk scene in Atonement ($30M) created far more gripping and spectacular visuals of the evacuations and that's not even really a war film. I've seen BBC war documentaries with far better re-enactments than Dunkirk. Even if you adjust for inflation since 1998 for Saving Private Ryan the budget only comes out barely higher than for Dunkirk and they achieved so, so much more for it... not to mention paying fortunes to the big names in it.
Honestly what Dunkirk reminded me of most was one of the propaganda films they're trying to make in Their Finest on a shoestring budget by filming boats in paddling pools from clever angles. Except without the cleverness. Apparently lots of the shots were based on photos of the actual event showing troops lining up on the beaches... but it's like they didn't realise those photos showed only a small section of the beach and there was a lot more stuff going on out of frame. They also apparently never saw any of the photos showing the masses of abandoned tanks, vehicles and weapons because the beach is beautifully empty. I don't know... perhaps the local council only gave them permission to shoot for a couple hours and didn't want to be clearing away props for days. Certainly not what you'd expect for something with a budget that eclipses pretty much every war film before it. Really the only explanation is that 90% of the budget went on overhyping the hell out of this film and suckering people into sitting through it...

Pile on top of this the poor direction choices, lack of characterisation, dialogue and pretty much anything else of any substance and the mystery becomes less about the finances and more about why anyone would think this is a good film.