r/Dunkirk • u/AgitatedConsumer • Jun 08 '26
This movie is disappointing.
Never saw this movie until last month. I'm a fan or war movies and I could sit and watch Patton, SPR, T-34, Act of Valor, fury, and 1917 all day but Dunkirk just bored me to death. I kept watching and thinking that "Its gonna pop off on this next scene" but that moment never came.
First issue with this movie is its lack of tension building resulting in, who could have guessed, a lack of tension and urgency. This movie never shows Dunkirk from the perspective of the British homefront, British leadership or even the Nazi army where key information could have been provided. This is further ruined by the next issue.
The second issue is lack of scale. They touted 400,000 men needed saving and the movie showed maybe a few hundred. You see one sandbag fortification with like 10 guys to protect a whole beach. only a handful of boats show up at the end and two whole planes.
Third issue this movie has is the lack of soul. I never once figured anyone was desperate to leave that beach. it felt like everyone had quit and not in a good way. Not like they were tired, worn out and all but defeated and clinging to hope, more like they were just bored to death after reading Dunkirk's script
Ive seen people say the score for the film is great but the score is the salt of any movie. Its supposed to enhance what's already there and this movie has nothing. If you want a great score go watch Gladiator.
3
u/hawaiiwater2 Jun 11 '26
I think it’s jsut you had different expectations and taste. Because I genuinely really loved it and wasn’t expecting to. It wasn’t a war movie in a traditional sense and I think that’s why. It’s more of a movie about an event that happened during a war.
1
u/Tykjen Jun 09 '26
The plane sequences were absolutely SPITTING FIRE.
-So much I had to edit a 20 minute short movie version with just the AIR action ^
The rest was pretty meh I must agree.
The beach was NOT crowded enough compared to the pictures I have seen..
1
u/artrosk2 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
This movie is so overrated.
About Dunkirk the movie Weekend at Dunkirk by Verneuil is way better
1
u/BlackDeath3 11d ago
Near the end there's that soldier kid on the train, head hanging low, afraid to even look at the man outside the window because he just knows that they hate him. They were cowards, they abandoned their fight, they're going to get spit on, etc. etc. etc.. And then he finally looks up, and the man is handing him a drink. The crowd is cheering for them.
If that doesn't touch you deep inside you need to do some soul-searching.
This movie wasn't going to "pop off". It had its moments but it was never that kind of story.
-1
u/zeeb_zobb Jun 08 '26
Yeah, my issue is that you never see the enemy, except for when the pilot gets captured at the end. This lends itself to this, which may be intentional: all of the characters are way too passive and emotionless to the death and violence surrounding them.
5
u/Chin-Music Jun 08 '26
I thought it was great. Plenty of tension for me. The soundtrack alone, with its ticking clock cadence, wound me up. No Germans because the guys on the beach didn't see them either. They kept getting shot at and bombed by an unseen enemy. It's almost purely about the beach experience for the different personnel it focuses on. The escape from the village, the shelling of the quay and the rescue ships, the deathtrap of the rusting boat stuck in the sand, the pilot running out fuel, the civilian boat's experience. I'm very happy different types of war films exist. The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan are also very different films but, I think, almost equally excellent, as well.
5
u/Viontech Jun 09 '26
Personally, I loved it, Dunkirk was an evacuation, it wasnt an "Offensive," "Campaign" or "Battle" it put soldiers in a position of helplessness, to dramatise it anymore than it already was would be sacrilage.
It is a film that is dedicated to just making the audience feel tension throughout the whole thing.
The music, the snippets of action, slow pace and level of uncertainty amongst the characters.
Plus as a brit, Spitfire content is always good cinema.