"Got around to see Dunkirk" Topic

It came up on Netflix.

Not very impressed.
Feels like Nolan's attempt at making the Thin red line.
Half artsy half Hollywood.
But Thin red line had unique interesting characters and great sound track.
This one is just boring.
It managed to make spitfire dogfighting boring (almost impressive in a way)

And the lack of scale is really noticeable.
Why are they all standing on the beach? There is only about a 1000 soldiers on the beach. Could easly have been quartered in some houses, no need to stand on that giant empty beach.

The only positive thing that can be said about it is that it was better than Darkest Hour. Not that that is saying much.

Didn't that actually happen? That is troops milling about the beach waiting to board whatever ships were available?

And there were no American characters in it! (Only joking.)

I found the film difficult to follow with the timeline and missed the developement of any characters.

But, what must be applauded is a movie made with minimal CGI (all the soldiers on the beach and pier are real), long continuous action shots done in one take. And dog fight and cockpit scenes filmed whilst in the air with planes flying like planes and not CGI starships.

Yep it could have been bettter but it could have been far worse. And there hasn't been a whole lot of British War movies made in recent years.

So all in all, i'll Watch it again.

BTW The original Dunkirk is still a fantastic movie and well worth a watch.

If the choice is between 1000 real extras and 1000 real extras and 399 000 CGI soldiers to actually show scale. I'd chose scale.
The dogfighting in the 50 year old battle of Britain is far better.
As I said. Feels like a half arsed art movie.

Comicbook Hero is quite right: the 1958 film is well worth a watch. It is actually superior to the recent film in many respects.

Under normal circumstances I'd agree that not using CGI is a good thing but here it was manifestly obvious that a very limited number of extras were trying to represent the best part of 300,000 blokes between the mole and the beach. The lack of ships could laso have been rectified with a bit of CGI.

What it needed was this:

What we got was this:

Watched it again for a second time yesterday and still love it. It's not the epic we're all used to in the The Longest Day or A Bridge Too Far. Not much character development in those movies either. It did a good job of sharing a few snapshots from an important event in a manageable movie without the benefit of CGI.

Yes, 50 years ago the Battle of Britain had better air scenes, but Franco was just giving up those Messerschmidts and Heinkels and there were a lot more flyable Spitfires. It also cost less to make a movie.

Thing that grated on me was none of the soldiers talking to one another or saying anything at all. All those pristine uniforms, nothing soiled, torn, whatever and nobody covered in sand. No Germans until the last 10 seconds when the Spitfire pilot was captured. And when he ran out of gas he glided down the beach one way and then glided down the beach the other way! All in all I thought it was a very strange movie. By the way, the movie "Atonement" has a short sequence on Dunkirk which was many times better than this entire movie.

If you're making a movie about Dunkirk and not making an epic. You shouldn't bother at all.

hocklermp5, I agree the "Atonement" scene is fantastic. You can see it here: YouTube link It's a very impressive 5 minute single-take tracking shot.

I liked dunkirk 'cos I watched it hoping H32 (my grandads ship ) had a tiny cameo in it somewhere , only to realise two thirds of the way in that H32 was damn near the only ship in the entire film, and that the entire plot almost literally revolved around her!

I enjoyed Dunkirk in spite of the lack of numbers and I completely enjoyed The Darkest Hour and was so happy for the Oscar wins.

So much moaning about an honest attempt to tell a story. Next the whinging will be about why does nobody ever make war films any more!

Dunkirk easily ranks as one of my top five war films. Here's a link to a similar discussion on TWW a few weeks ago (along with the reasons I personally enjoyed it): link

I thought it was a damn fine movie. What the hell you people want? Nevermind, I don't really wanna know.

Loved the movie,saw it three times in the theater.

I enjoyed the movie. Liked how the story was told.

Ceterman +1

Kenneth Branagh being old fashioned stoically British, stiff upper lip and all that… like all the old 40's and 50's war movies……

Ceterman +2

Ceterman +3. Loved it!

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It actually improved on second watching. The subplot about the teen accidently killed while helping out moved me deeply.

I liked it a lot.

Real Dunkirk

Movie Dunkirk

Seems to be a reasonable facsimile since the beachhead was 5 miles long.

Once I'd got my head around the 3 different time lines I really enjoyed it, bought the DVD as soon as it came out.

It had great potential but failed in a variety of ways. It looked like they had spent all the money on fancy cameras and didn't have any left for actually staging the scenes – the same 'bomb the ship' set was just run 4-5 times from different angles.

I did enjoy it. Too bad you didn't.

I did not like the gliding Spitfire bit,it felt so improbable that I ridiculed it for awhile. Apart from that the movie was ok.

The scope and POV of 'Dunkirk' are intentionally limited and "myopic." Nolan did not want to simply remake the film as an epic and redo what was already done before with better technology and FX. He aimed to portray the event as seen through the eyes of a few individuals, in this case Fionn Whitehead's PBI Tommy, Kenneth Branagh's Commander Bolton, Mark Rylance's Mr. Dawson and Tom Hardy's Spitfire pilot Farrier. The film also ingeniously employed multiple time spans for land, sea and air. Tommy's story spanned a week, Commander Bolton's and Mr. Dawson's exploits covered one day and Farrier's heroics lasted an hour.

'Dunkirk' has never been portrayed through the experiences of individuals like this before, lending the movie an immediacy and realism a traditional "big picture" epic could never hope to achieve. It's rather brilliant.

Great Movie. I've seen it about four times since opening day. The three timelines takes a bit to get used to and not something I'm generally a fan of, but it works great for this film.

Thin Red Line is one of the worst movies ever made. Beautifully shot and a great sound track are the only good things I can say about it. However, it was so boring I fell asleep through most of it….three time. I finally gave up on ever watching this train wreck.

Ceterman +4.

"I did not like the gliding Spitfire bit,it felt so improbable that I ridiculed it for awhile."

1. Spitfire runs out of fuel after 12 foreshadowing moments
2. Soldiers have cliché Saving Private Ryan lifeboat scene inside the tugboat
3. Spitfire heads back to the beach to save our boys
4. Soldiers get rescued (except for the Evil French who we hate because they're getting all the glory fighting in the abandoned city behind us)
5. Spitfire engages German fighter who apparently is unable to maneuver because they too are gliding
6. Soldiers make it to England
7. Spitfire passes down the beach for yet another farewell after coming out of retirement
8. Soldiers ride a train to central England and ogle children
9. Spitfire passes down the beach again so Branagh can salute it (apparently missed on the previous dozen quiet passes – missed cue while queuing?)
10. Spitfire lands in Denmark due to continued unexpectedly good glide ratio and is captured by blurry Germans

Does any producer and director actually sit down and say, "Yeah, I'm tired of those epics with character development. What we need is something more… more… myopic and introspective – you know, like Brexit but with guns." (I kid, I kid, kinda)

I think it is a fail. I just didn't care about anyone in the movie except one clear character that exuded real character despite having few actual lines – the Dad in the small boat! He was awesome. I'd rather the whole movie been about him and the trip. Now that would have been myopia worth having. Everything else just seemed like a hand wave and atrociously unbalanced to the point of xenophobia.

Thin Red Line was much worse. I also fell asleep repeatedly.

Dunkirk – "I did not fall asleep"

I can't wait for Corunna!

I quite liked it – no grandstanding heroes

A bit hard to follow but I did figure it out mid-movie

I have to say that, although I liked it, I did wonder why a Spitfire pilot out of fuel would cruise over a beach full of British soldiers to fly a few more kilometers and land on a German held beach

Just sayin'

Have to say I agree almost entirely with N0tt0N's entire post (guess I just can't think for myself:)

"atrociously unbalanced to the point of xenophobia."

If you could explain?

I enjoyed it and want to see it again. The 3 different time lines are a bit confusing as don't know of another movie that has done it that way.

I did wonder why a Spitfire pilot out of fuel would cruise over a beach full of British soldiers to fly a few more kilometers and land on a German held beach

Because that's all he had enough fuel for. He wasn't going to make it back to base across the channel.

'Dunkirk' isn't a conventional war movie, but that's one of the reasons why I liked it. YMMV.

In not sure I would have lowered the landing gear either landing on sand.
Over all halfassed with weird timeline. But as someone said we shouldn't gripe at least they made a war movie.

A war movie that can't bother making engine sounds for a spitfire is no war movie with seeing.

Somehow it always feels unsatisfying to me when they name a movie after a substantial historical event (whether Dunkirk, or Titanic, or whatever you may like), but then present a movie about some twisting personal storyline that just happens to be set in and around that historical event.

Better it had been named "Bring the Boys Home", "So Close and Yet So Far", "Escape from Dunkirk" … whatever. Naming it Dunkirk just feels like clickbait to me. Very unsatisfying. This was not a movie about Dunkirk. It was a movie about a few characters that happened to be set at / during Dunkirk.

If producers had made a movie with a storyline about a US Captain leading the few surviving members of his company on a myopic journey to find some private named Ryan, and then called it "Operation Overlord", I would not have found that movie as satisfying as I did given it's actual name.

-Mark
(aka Mk 1)

"A war movie that can't bother making engine sounds for a spitfire is no war movie with seeing." I say then Gunfreak, stay at home and wish for a movie… or better yet, make one yourself.

I did stay at home (as I made clear in the original post)
And I'm entitled to my opinion with out your synde remark.
Or are you going to make a movie for every movie you didn't like?

"Or are you going to make a movie for every movie you didn't like?"
No but I ain't gonna criticize a damn good war film for a gliding Spit either.
Do y'all even know that part of the movie REALLY happened? Then they recovered THAT Spit. Restored THAT Spit & then flew over the Dunkirk beaches?
link

I'm referring to the fact the spitfires don't have any sounds. Thereby they are either gliding the whole movie or they are electric.
As I said. The whole movie feels like a bad attempt at an art movie. Stripping reality for some sort of washed out abstract feel.

I liked it, thought it was generally well done. And of course I liked The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far and Saving Private Ryan as well.

Even enjoyed Kelly's Heroes !

Plenty evidence of the sweet sound of the Merlin in this clip. YouTube link since Gunfreak stayed home I can understand how he missed it.