Movies: Dunkirk: Christopher Nolan next movie release date July 2017

[XX]

Nolan sucks at action and gunplay, which really hurt. The score did get annoying at points. Almost no inclusion of the French, who were absolutely vital. No gore seemed really odd, they should have gone for the R rating.

It's a very well made movie but it's a pretty bad war movie IMO, Spitfires aside.

 

[beowulf]

I absolutely loved it. Why people need gore is beyond me, the story was well told without tit and that's fine with me.

 

[Canucks5551]

I just saw it today and I thought it was fantastic. It eschewed a lot of the tropes that are common to war films, was tense throughout and looked amazing. I see some criticism of the lack of character building, but I thought the minimalist aspect worked in the movie's favour. It focused much more on the varied human reaction to disaster and fear in general, making the scope more broad than a character study. The emotions were more primal and instinctual. Something more focused may have bogged things down. I also saw some criticism here of the storylines not being presented in a linear format, which I also though worked here with keeping up a relentless pace (with the one exception being how long it took Tom Hardy's plane to land at the end).

I'm a big fan of Nolan's work, but was a little disappointed with his last couple. I think this is his best film since The Dark Knight and one of the best war movies I've seen.

 

[dogbazinho]

So the main character, if you can call it that, needs to go number 2 so bad he is willing to do it on a beach in the middle of a war zone. The rest of the movie is spent running for his life. I'd like to think his story is a quest for bathroom salvation.

 

[Troy McClure]

Nolan sucks at action and gunplay, which really hurt. The score did get annoying at points. Almost no inclusion of the French, who were absolutely vital. No gore seemed really odd, they should have gone for the R rating.

It's a very well made movie but it's a pretty bad war movie IMO, Spitfires aside.

I don't understand this criticism. The French weren't excluded at all. Sure, the French weren't loaded on any boats, but the movie made a point of that was a choice the Brits made when it came to prioritizing their own soldiers over French soldiers.

 

[Canucks5551]

I don't understand this criticism. The French weren't excluded at all. Sure, the French weren't loaded on any boats, but the movie made a point of that was a choice the Brits made when it came to prioritizing their own soldiers over French soldiers.

Yeah, I don't get it either. It's made pretty clear that the French are largely responsible for holding the perimeter to allow the evacuation to happen and plenty of French troops are shown sprinkled in on the beaches and in the boats.

 

[HanSolo]

Nolan sucks at action and gunplay, which really hurt. The score did get annoying at points. Almost no inclusion of the French, who were absolutely vital. No gore seemed really odd, they should have gone for the R rating.

It's a very well made movie but it's a pretty bad war movie IMO, Spitfires aside.

They were vital to keeping the Germans away for the escape to be possible but the movie wasn't about them, it was about the difficulty and chaos of getting hundreds of thousands of men off that beach and the English citizens risking their lives to help the war effort.

People act like Nolan just forgot to include the French or they forgot to show any German soldiers as they fired on the British and French. Or that he simply forgot to include much dialouge and character development. They were all artistic choices along with the runtime to keep the focus on the event itself.

 

[Zih]

I thought it was decent. The air and sea stories were visually stunning. But I have some complaints about how the event was depicted.

At no point did it feel like there were remotely close to 400,000 soldiers in the pocket. Throughout the entire movie, the beach is virtually empty and pristine. If they hadn't mentioned the numbers, I would've guessed that there were at most 5,000 soldiers trapped at Dunkirk. I guess this was due to Nolan's refusal to use CGI to fill out the beaches, but I would've preferred CGI to having the sense of scale feel so massively wrong. The same complaint could be made about the number of ships involved. There were almost 900 ships involved in the evacuations, but I don't think they ever show more than 10 at a time.

I also thought the tone of the movie was too negative. The movie gave almost no impression that the outcome was hugely positive for the British considering the circumstances. A large majority of the trapped soldiers were safely evacuated, but the tone of the movie was mostly of the Germans crapping mercilessly on the Allies, who barely manage to rescue 50 soldiers at the end. This isn't helped by the impression given that the British Navy and Air Force gave up and abandoned the rescue effort. Aside from 2 short uplifting scenes, you'd never guess this event would be seen as something the British would be proud of.

I can understand why the movie was made the way it was. Nolan wanted the movie to be about unrelenting anxiety, so he selectively told stories that fed into that narrative. And to be fair, I don't think Nolan depicted the events falsely; this just isn't the depiction of Dunkirk that I would've wanted.

 

[Mount Suribachi]

"Wars are not won by evacuations"

 

[CycloneLaunch]

Found a great article on the actual events that unfolded at Dunkirk:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...vacuation-Dunkirk-recalled-minute-minute.html

It's interesting to note that Mark Rylance's character Mr. Dawson was based on an actual real person. That person was retired Royal Navy Commander Charles Lightoller. Lightoller was famous for being the second officer of the Titanic and was the highest ranking officer to survive its sinking in 1912. He served in the Royal Navy during WWI and the ship he commanded sank a U-boat in 1918. In 1940 he was retired but answered the call and took his personal yacht, the "Sundowner," over to Dunkirk.

Here are the excerpts from the article on Saturday, June 1st which can be spoilers for those that haven't seen the film:



I also found this article which gave a little more info about that day and the Sundowner which is now in a maritime museum in England:

http://www.adls.org.uk/t1/content/sundowner-0



Lightoller is a legend, he survived the Titanic, he survived naval combat with Germans in WWI, he survived being strafed by German aircraft while trying to rescue soldiers in WWII, he lost his youngest son who was in the RAF during the first week of WWII and he lost his oldest son, who helped him sail the Sundowner to Dunkirk, in the last year of the war. Now he was fictionally immortalized in this film after being non-fictionally immortalized in multiple films on the Titanic. Really great history.

Cool read. One of my favourite bits from the movie is you never see Rylance's character get agitated until he wants to rescue the pilot, then you find out later it's cause his son died flying for the RAF

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

I feel Cilian Murphy's character being fleshed out a bit before we see him on the boat later on would add a lot. Did anyone care about his character at all?

Plus it ultimately doesn't matter if his gear comes out or not, because noone cares about his character, and he is ****ed whether he lands or not based on where he is landing.

either the few characters they focused on successfully retreated or they got hit by the luftwaffe, a torpedo, or they just straight up capsized and drowned, but with such little development of the characters who cares if they were lucky or not to make it home.

How about just like, caring about other humans on a basic level? Would you rather have seen some ham-fisted flashback to Tom Hardy at home playing with his kids? Or a shoe-horned monologue from Cillian Murphy about the horrors of war? Absolutely none of that was needed. You can infer all that with minimal amounts of human empathy.

Also, they kept on showing boats getting sunk to emphasis just how tough it was to get out of there. "Repetitive?" You bet!

I for one loved that it just dropped you right in the middle of it. A visceral, gripping experience. So glad I was able to see it in IMAX. The screams from those bombers were harrowing.

 

[Muzzinga]

How about just like, caring about other humans on a basic level? Would you rather have seen some ham-fisted flashback to Tom Hardy at home playing with his kids? Or a shoe-horned monologue from Cillian Murphy about the horrors of war? Absolutely none of that was needed. You can infer all that with minimal amounts of human empathy.

Well no, its just human nature. You care more about people as you get closer to them. You can take evidence of that in this very movie. How much emotion did you have for the people who died in the sinking ship with the bread in? or the people near the start that got blown up?

But you also didn't need any of those things you are suggesting, all I said was put it in chronological order so that we can spend time with Cillian to see how his character got to that state instead of jumping around and expecting us to care from the start.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

By putting it in chronological order it completely throws the entire movie out of whack.

Not to mention we weren't supposed to care about that character speficially, anyway, and knowing more about him before the ship sunk would not have helped the film. His importance was demonstrated afterwards as a victim of PTSD.

 

[Muzzinga]

Thats fair enough, I feel the opposite. My comments about his character weren't about the film as a whole. As stated, I think his character would have worked better if he had been fleshed out a bit with a bit of an arc so that we had empathy for the character. Instead of his character being a bit of a bland paint by numbers PTSD soldier, and that would have been achieved by him appearing pre boat more often. I don't believe for a second that you aren't meant to care about his character. The lingering shots on him after they get off the boat prove that.

Although I'm not sure how putting the film in order would throw the movie out of whack. I actually think it would do the complete opposite. It wouldn't try to be fancy and would simply let the story speak for itself. Its a survival story, so it feels weird to show a survival story in fractures instead of allowing you to experience the journey the same way as the characters.

And with Tom Hardy, I didn't need his character to be fleshed out, or have a back story or whatever. I just disliked the ending where we suddenly focused so hard on his character, because they hadn't done anything to make us care for his character. Would have preferred him making that last second save shooting down that plane, and then leave his fate undetermined

 

[Canucks5551]

I think putting the film's various story threads in chronological order would have hurt the pacing. I think part of what made it work so well for me was the relentless tension and the way the three settings played off each other in that regard. It also would have made the beginning of the movie be exclusively about the soldiers on the beach, as the air and sea storylines only come into the picture at the very end of the week the film is set over. Either you'd have to shoehorn the characters in late, or mess with the momentum by showing what they were doing pre-evacuation.

 

[StrictlyCommercial]

Pretty sure no one in the theatre noticed the one week one day one hour text. Should have made it more prononounced somehow.

 

[XX]

People act like Nolan just forgot to include the French or they forgot to show any German soldiers as they fired on the British and French. Or that he simply forgot to include much dialouge and character development. They were all artistic choices along with the runtime to keep the focus on the event itself.

It's a good movie about desperation and some triumph over chaos, but it's a pretty weak movie about the actual battle and evacuation. I'm also worried that, given how important the theater experience was to the overall impact (along with the soundtrack), that it won't be very good on repeat viewings.

It is a good movie but I don't think it's an automatic favorite for many Oscars, nor is it a "masterpiece" as some have been describing it.

I thought it was decent. The air and sea stories were visually stunning. But I have some complaints about how the event was depicted.

At no point did it feel like there were remotely close to 400,000 soldiers in the pocket.

Yeah, it feels like a tiny boat force shows up to rescue a division worth of soldiers. They only had $100 million to make it, so it was probably a budget issue.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

And with Tom Hardy, I didn't need his character to be fleshed out, or have a back story or whatever. I just disliked the ending where we suddenly focused so hard on his character, because they hadn't done anything to make us care for his character. Would have preferred him making that last second save shooting down that plane, and then leave his fate undetermined

I get what you want, but I'm wondering what it is you're calling for regarding his character, especially if it's none of the things you just listed in that first sentence. A "saving the cat" moment? Those don't really work in war movies.

 

[The Beyonder]

I thought it was a decent film. Personally, I think it's Nolan's best directed film; props to the editor and sound crew as well. From a production stand point, it's absolutely superb; great cinematography too. Great pacing and great tension throughout the film. But it severely lacks in character for me. And I suppose that's not what the film wanted to do, it's really people in a situation. Well, there was character moments, there wasn't any character arch or emotional drive in the film.

I enjoyed the film, I just think he's made better films in terms of story telling; but it's a fantastically directed and shot film.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

I don't understand this criticism. The French weren't excluded at all. Sure, the French weren't loaded on any boats, but the movie made a point of that was a choice the Brits made when it came to prioritizing their own soldiers over French soldiers.

French forces mounted a critical defensive line that held up German forces long enough to get that many more allied soldiers off the beaches.

 

[Troy McClure]

French forces mounted a critical defensive line that held up German forces long enough to get that many more allied soldiers off the beaches.

Ok, but this wasn't a movie about the defense of Dunkirk or the battles lost that lead to the forces being surrounded. It was about the escape from Dunkirk. Even at that, it was a very limited telling of the evacuation.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

I thought it was decent. The air and sea stories were visually stunning. But I have some complaints about how the event was depicted.

At no point did it feel like there were remotely close to 400,000 soldiers in the pocket. Throughout the entire movie, the beach is virtually empty and pristine. If they hadn't mentioned the numbers, I would've guessed that there were at most 5,000 soldiers trapped at Dunkirk. I guess this was due to Nolan's refusal to use CGI to fill out the beaches, but I would've preferred CGI to having the sense of scale feel so massively wrong. The same complaint could be made about the number of ships involved. There were almost 900 ships involved in the evacuations, but I don't think they ever show more than 10 at a time.

I also thought the tone of the movie was too negative. The movie gave almost no impression that the outcome was hugely positive for the British considering the circumstances. A large majority of the trapped soldiers were safely evacuated, but the tone of the movie was mostly of the Germans crapping mercilessly on the Allies, who barely manage to rescue 50 soldiers at the end. This isn't helped by the impression given that the British Navy and Air Force gave up and abandoned the rescue effort. Aside from 2 short uplifting scenes, you'd never guess this event would be seen as something the British would be proud of.

I can understand why the movie was made the way it was. Nolan wanted the movie to be about unrelenting anxiety, so he selectively told stories that fed into that narrative. And to be fair, I don't think Nolan depicted the events falsely; this just isn't the depiction of Dunkirk that I would've wanted.

Anytime you have to scurry to save 400,000+ soldiers, and end up losing your primary ally and the majority of your heavy equipment, no one is going to view it as any sort of victory.

Sure, we view it as a victory now, but the Germans were litterally on the brink of an overwhelming victory. Had they managed to destroy the pocket, Britain would have been neutered, and I can't forsee a situation where they could have recovered as they did in time for the German aerial campaign.

 

[Muzzinga]

I get what you want, but I'm wondering what it is you're calling for regarding his character, especially if it's none of the things you just listed in that first sentence. A "saving the cat" moment? Those don't really work in war movies.

I'm not sure what you mean. I was happy with Tom Hardy's character, I just disliked the focus on him to end and the will he wont he make it scenario because I think if you are going to do that, you have to build up the character first.

 

[Goonzilla]

This movie was good, great in some parts and very well shot, but is a little overrated and not as good as some of the praise heaped on it.

Fact is, Nolan could film paint drying and people would heap praise on him.

I enjoyed it, love war films and don't need non-stop action or gun battles, that this doesn't make any of my top lists.

It was maybe a war film for art film fans of people that don't ordinarily like war films, along with the likes of The Thin Red Line.

I don't think this is going to hold up as well on repeat viewings.

 

[aufheben]

Was looking forward to seeing it but that was really forgettable. This is stupid but the movie poster irks me. I know that's his brand but it could just as easily be a poster for a 4th Batman movie lol.