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

[GlassesJacketShirt]

I'm not feeling these comparisons either. Fury Road is not even a real Mad Max movie with Mel Gibson. Dunkirk is light years beyond Gravity and Fury Road in my opinion.

Disagree on both counts. Both films offer little in the way of dialogue or plot, contain big action moments, feel like a continuous sequence with calmer breaks.....and star Tom Hardy in a key role.

And I actually preferred Fury Road if I am being honest but I don't see anything remotely wrong with someone liking Dunkirk more, I can agree that it does some things better.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Liked it, but didn't love it. Didn't really have any emotional connection to any character, so I think that the fairly short run time simultaneously served its point (keeping things tight and tense throughout) while harming the product as well (a lot of things just didn't feel properly fleshed out).

This is a lazy criticism, but there was just something big missing and I can't put my finger on it yet. Really need to sit and think about this movie. Just didn't feel satisfied after watching the film. Not saying that every movie has to be happy or anything like that, and heck the movie's about an evacuation after a major defeat for a country that was facing five more years of war ahead of it, so it's not like there could've been a definitive conclusion or anything.

Dunno. Just left wanting more. That being said, very well-directed film with excellent pacing, solid acting, a great score. Legitimate war thriller, but there's still just something gnawing in the back of my head holding me back from loving it.

 

[izlez]

I really liked it. Thought the minimal character development and just going straight to the action to tell the story was a cool way to do it and it worked well (and I'm generally a guy who wouldn't ever say that about a movie. Action is boring without context and a reason to care). And as always with Nolan, the practical effects were amazing. I wish all filmmakers would follow his lead.

That being said, my criticisms:
[SPOIL]The Tom Hardy character flying into enemy territory at the end. They sure didn't convey any reason that that needed to happen. Flying over the beach with all his allies as he's going down, next thing you know, he's with the enemies. Maybe there was a reason for it, but they sure didn't let the viewers know

And a bigger one....I feel like they didn't tell/show enough of the story of them actually getting all those soldiers out. The whole story is about 400,000 soldiers being trapped and how impossible it was to get them all out. So what we get is: A shot of 50-100 fishing boats pulling up to the beach. Ok, so that lets us know about 1% of those 400,000 soldiers are being rescued. That really doesn't convey the sense of the day being saved, but all of a sudden they've got everyone rescued [/SPOIL]

 

[Datsyukian Deke]

Saw it yesterday. I enjoyed the movie very much, indeed. Did it blow me away? Not necessarily, but I gave it a 7 out of 10, and do recommend seeing it as a good historical movie.

At times it got a bit confusing to follow the timeline, until you realized it was going back and forth a lot in different view points of characters. I kept waiting for Cillian Murphy to become the Scarecow, at random, ha.

 

[Goldenshark]

That being said, my criticisms:
[SPOIL]The Tom Hardy character flying into enemy territory at the end. They sure didn't convey any reason that that needed to happen. Flying over the beach with all his allies as he's going down, next thing you know, he's with the enemies. Maybe there was a reason for it, but they sure didn't let the viewers know

And a bigger one....I feel like they didn't tell/show enough of the story of them actually getting all those soldiers out. The whole story is about 400,000 soldiers being trapped and how impossible it was to get them all out. So what we get is: A shot of 50-100 fishing boats pulling up to the beach. Ok, so that lets us know about 1% of those 400,000 soldiers are being rescued. That really doesn't convey the sense of the day being saved, but all of a sudden they've got everyone rescued [/SPOIL]

As to your first criticism,
[spoil]they didn't really have anybody Tom Hardy could talk to and say what he was doing since his buddies were all shot down. He couldn't land on the beach that the British controlled for fear of hitting somebody since they were all in lines to the water. He landed farther up to avoid hitting them and was then captured.

The only question becomes then, why didn't he ditch in the water?

Well, my thoughts are he didn't want to risk serious bodily harm or death by drowning. There's no guarantee when you ditch or crash in water than when you can put the plane safely down on land. Keep in mind that he's a British RAF officer, he'll get better treatment than most in a POW camp, especially if it's run by the Luftwaffe. He wouldn't go to a death camp like in Schindler's List which most were unaware of at that time.[/spoil]

As to your second criticism, I agree in part. It owes to the minimalist nature of the film. Showing more boats and men would require CGI that Nolan probably didn't want to mar his film with. I would rather have him error on the side of less CGI than more, which I thought he did a brilliant job of.

 

[TJ Hooker]

The film was... fine. Was nothing special. I wanted to love it, but it just wasn't loveable.

 

[Arizonan God]

Upon second watch, I still love it.

 

[NMF78]

Get your heads out of your *****. This movie is nothing like Gravity. That movie was crap.

How is Sandra Bullock yelling for 2 hours in space comparable to this??? Brutal comparison.

Agreed, Dunkirk is the far superior movie.

 

[RobBrown4PM]

Are those 111's real in the movie? I thought the last one crashed a number of years back

Edit: I know the 111's that have been used were the CASA 111's. Question still stands thiugh, are they real 9r CGI

 

[Fugazy]

Upon second watch, I still love it.

Same.

 

[kurt]

Really good overall. Not really worth all the fuss though. I left wondering why everyone has been raving so much.

 

[kingsholygrail]

I just think the better story at that battle was the defenders forming that wall between them and the evacuating soldiers. I don't see why you can't do both.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Seen it last night. I liked it, but at the same time i don't think it was really worth all of that praise.

Being a history major, the one thing i applaud is the fact the movie was written very well in that regard. The star of the show is clearly the actual events that unfolded. Given how you literally get thrown into the movie with no introduction to the main three characters (Hardy/Styles/Rylance) and nothing in regards to development and whatnot. History is allowed to speak for itself on screen, given how the actual Dunkirk story is almost unbelievable to begin with. That being said, i can see why a lot of people would find that offputting/not entertaining since i kinda got bored early in the movie


I also liked how it rightly captured the mood of the war too. Everyone is "all in" on it as how millions were mobilized for the cause. It's about the motherland, even if it means taking your dingy sailboat into the mouth of hell in an attempt to save some of your own. (I thought the best part of the movie was when the navy officer sees the flotilla of civilian boats on the horizon. Really well done)

7/10 for me, but a really good 7.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I really liked it. It kept the tension high from beginning to end, and it captured the individual experience of war better than most war movies. Didn't seem to have much going on thematically, and that's probably what most people are missing.

 

[ecemleafs]

idk how this movie got such good reviews and ratings. absolutely zero character development. pretty much the only character u know the name of is dead on the floor for half the movie.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

idk how this movie got such good reviews and ratings. absolutely zero character development. pretty much the only character u know the name of is dead on the floor for half the movie.

A movie doesn't have to develop its characters for it to be good. It was story driven and was meant to provide suspense, not provide arcs for the characters.

 

[Peasy]

A movie doesn't have to develop its characters for it to be good. It was story driven and was meant to provide suspense, not provide arcs for the characters.

Seriously lol. Not every solid movie has to follow the exact same recipe.

What makes this movie great imo is that its not like every other war movie. You see the enemy for about 10 secs at the end of the film, but it was intense the entire way through.

 

[ecemleafs]

A movie doesn't have to develop its characters for it to be good. It was story driven and was meant to provide suspense, not provide arcs for the characters.

where was the suspense? dunkirk is famous for what happened there. 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.

 

[Blitzkrug]

The whole point is to pay attention to the background, not foreground in this case.

That being said, i can see why people would find this bland and dull. It's def not a movie for everyone especially considering what Nolan worked on in the past (TDK trilogy, Inception, Interstellar)

 

[Jussi]

where was the suspense? dunkirk is famous for what happened there. 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.

This really is the downfall of biopics, if you know the history of the actual event or a figure, there's only so much you can do with the material. If you go with the "see how many/who survive", you have to flesh out the characters a little, like in Saving Private Ryan (or the Finnish "Unknown Soldier"). I hadn't heard of Dunkirk before, but did read about it. Quite frankly I don't really see the material being very interesting to me for a WW2 movie, especially if you remove the character aspect.

 

[Goldenshark]

I've seen the film twice now and I still think it's fantastic. The first time I saw it was in small screen Imax Digital and the second time I saw it in big screen Imax 70mm and it was unbelievable. The whole 5 story screen was filled for almost the entire film. They really disguised the parts of the film that were shot in regular 70mm and had small black bars on top and bottom that I hardly even noticed.

All of the aerial sequences were shot in Imax 70mm and seeing the entire huge screen with the ocean and clouds in the background as the aircraft dogfight was pure bliss to me.

The fact that they used real planes and real ships for like 90-95% of the movie is unheard of for special effects in this day and age.

I liked that the film was minimalist by nature. I don't want to see cliches that have been done over and over and over. It's boring, that's why the way Nolan did it was refreshing, he just focused on the event in a small way from 3 different perspectives and it was unique and great.

The Sea portion was probably the strongest part of the film narrative wise, and that was because it was based on a actual person, Charles Lightoller. A guy who survived the freaking Titanic! My favorite sequence was The Air because I love planes and that was the greatest live action aerial combat ever made for a film, it was just awesome. I don't think people realize how hard it is to film something like that.

If you guys who didn't think much of it watched this in a run of the mill theater in 2K digital projection, that's half of the problem right there. This movie was old school and shot on film and deserves to be watched old school as projected film, especially in the greatest way of all, Imax 70mm.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

I absolutely love this film....Nolan does masterful job of putting the viewer right into the middle of the action

and who cares about character development? this is war and survival and there's only one objective at this point...get the **** home! no one cares about you, your feelings or your family when the German Luftwaffe is bombing the beaches every few minutes.....do whatever you can to help the cause at this point

at least that's how I saw it (and see it in 70mm IMAX...stunning!)

9.5/10

 

[themightyquinn]

Incredible movie. The exact opposite of The Thin Red Line. No need for character arcs, convoluted plots or people "discovering themselves" during times of war. Do you really need a soldier to tell another soldier how they feel about being shot at, bombed or torpedoed by Germans to make a movie more interesting?

The movie manages to convey a sense of fear, survival, bravery and selflessness from normal, ordinary people put in extraordinary situations.

9.5 out of 10.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

where was the suspense? dunkirk is famous for what happened there. 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.

It wasn't even about the specific characters who we followed around but those surrounding them. Viewing the carnage, the desperation, the fear through the eyes of people from different perspectives provided me with an engrossing experience and the choice to never show a single German soldier (except the end where they were obscured anyway) made them into a faceless threat which inspired more concern as I watched the characters flee their attacks.

A character doesn't have to have an arc or a lot of development for you to care about them or their situation. The characters were real people and came across as real people we could empathize with by their demeanor and their goals (the men in the army trying to get home, the pilots trying to save as many people as they can, the gentleman on the pleasure boat wanting to save fellow citizens, and the commander who was trying to save his men). Do they need a wife and kids back home, a complex backstory, a fatal flaw which manifests itself in some way? No. They are men and boys trying to save others or be saved from what appears to be a hopeless situation. War does not have to be overly complicated for it to connect with you.

 

[Muzzinga]

Put me down as not a fan for these reasons

First major critique is the score. I understand it was meant to feel unnerving and unsettling but it is brutal. I felt like i was being tortured into having a heart attack. I don't need to actually feel like im at war to get a good experience, it is monotonous and relentless. You get huge 3 minute+ segments of nothing but a droning alarm sound blasted in your ears. I was actually considering leaving due to it, and if the 3rd act didn't seriously pick up the quality and keep me invested, I may well have done so.

The intentional jumping of time plot seems to be there purely to be a cool quirk. Not sure it adds anything but unnecessary confusion. Since you are telling a story of survival for the men on the beach, really would have liked to see the film play out in a much more linear format. Actually staying on the beach for the first 50 minutes so you can appreciate the length of their struggle, before introducing the boats, then bring in Tom Hardy with 30 minutes to go. You suddenly feel emotion for the characters due to spending time with them and learning how hard it is, and 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?

The film feels like the same 3 scenes on repeat, (maybe this is why its chopped up like it is to make that less obvious?). Every Tom hardy scene is the same, the cuts to the boat where we can have another discussion about ptsd played out quickly, and each beach scene being, we escaped, oh no actually we didn't got repetitive. 'The land' was clear best part of the story and I liked it a lot, but the scenes really picked up when the characters started talking to each other in the boat on the beach. Maybe would have been nice to use words to add tension in other scenes too?

Last critique is the terrible Tom Hardy end bit. How long to we have to watch him glide for? and then the extended omg will he wont he of the landing gear. Why has such a cheesy thing been put in out of the blue? 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.

Overall the film looks beautiful and is a great piece of film making. Its just the sound is awful and the film tries to do cool stuff just to be quirky to its detriment. Ultimately though, I think it's just boring. Shame because the story is one I didn't even know of, and seems like a great story. Maybe if the film had been handed to someone to just let the story do the work instead of trying to jazz it up, it would have worked better.