Should have been 5 stars but let down by hopeless script.

Rating: 3/10 (21 October 2014)

***Spoilers. SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!!!****
Last night I saw the film in a packed cinema full for friendly film folk, a generous audience.
I was incredibly excited to see the film, had watched the trailers and some of the behind the scenes stuff, and was impressed with the film makers attention to detail. Getting the Tiger tank from Bovington Tank museum etc.
This film should have been a 5 star smash hit, but, and it breaks my heart to say it, it just isn't.
The problem, as with so many US studio pictures is the script. It just isn't good enough.
Everyone clearly worked very hard on the film, but the lines and the story were just not there for them.
The opening of the film was very good and nicely shot, but then we move to incredibly predictable story. Every new scenes sets up a question: will they kill the Germans? and the answer is yes. Will they get ambushed in the town? Yes. Will the German girl get killed? Yes. Will they shoot the German POWs? Yes. Will the next mission at the cross roads be a disaster? Yes Will the new bloke survive? Yes.
There is absolutely nothing unexpected or surprising or more impotently- clever. This is very basic but VERY VERY Expensive film making.
And for the sake of the lord where are the European troops??? Once again (Saving Private Ryan etc) the US are portrayed as the only ground troops in WW2 who weren't German.
Even the aircraft that fly overhead looked like Mustangs (USA) and I just wondered where the RAF might have got to?
Brad Pitts character shows a moment of weakness at the beginning of the film, but we never go back to this, and this is what would have made him interesting!
I really really wanted to like this movie, but it doesn't go anywhere we haven't been before, and there is an astonishing lack of empathy and emotional attachment to the main five characters, I just wasn't that fussed if they lived or died. I was more emotionally attached to Despicable me
I remember watching Das Boot and just wishing and praying for the UBoat crew to live, they so wanted to live - I was on the edge of my seat, but those emotions were not there in this film. The tank crew did not want to live enough that I was rooting for them. As soon as Brad Pitt decides to make a stand that will mean everyones suicide, they all just say, Yeah sure - I've got no place else to go. It makes no sense. They would have been better falling back and telling the Captain that the SS were on the way and maybe call in an airstrike, from those Mustangs we just saw.
Maybe Brad Pitt is just too big a name and not that big enough of an actor to give us the audience a real kick in the heart, which is what a movie like this should be handing out. It's a War film, I WANT to feel sad. I want to feel the pain and suffering, but ultimate triumph of good vs Evil and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.
But I just didn't.
I was also never on the edge of my seat. There were several really good jumps (when the column is ambushed) but it was consistently lacking in tension, I don't know if this was due to editing, or score, but it just isn't there.
I also never really felt the size and weight of the tanks like I had in other tank movies like Private Ryan, or even Kelly's Heroes!!
Having watched the making of - they had every conceivable sort of crane, dolly, camera and lens, but there are surprisingly few exciting, interesting, imaginative shots in the film. Just consider the Tank Turret shot from Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and that shot should have been in this film (obviously with less Apes).
Everything was there for this film to be one of the great cinema films, but lazy script writing will push it into the archives of movie history.
The definitive WW2 Tank movie is still to be made.