**SPOILERS WITHIN**

Please continue pre-release discussion here.

Movie:
"Dunkirk" (Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Harry Styles (yes, that one!))

Release Date:
7/21/17

Rating:
PG-13 (for for intense war experience and some language.)

Running Time:
106m. (1h. 46m.)

Budget:
$150 million (estimated)

IMDb Synopsis:


IMDb Info and Rating:
9.8 (2,029 votes as of 7/15/17)

Rotten Tomatoes:
Fresh:00 Rotten:00 (00% as of 7/15/17)

Metacritic:
00 metascore ('Universal acclaim reviews' as of 7/15/17)

Trailer:


Poster Art:

Bump for the release.

Will be seeing this tomorrow night.


Also, a preemptive mod note to certain members - don't bring your thread crapping in here. You've been warned in the past and action will be taken.

Looking forward to that certain member's inevitable suspension

Aww.

Don't worry, I won't be seeing this so I won't be in this thread anymore.

I'm a big Nolan fan so I decided to check this out tonight. I thought it was very well made and acted but have to be honest I didn't find myself very enthralled with the film. It's definitely a very slow burning war/rescue film which obviously it's supposed to be but it just didn't completely click with me. It was worth watching but I don't see myself revisiting it.

This is right on the money. You can't really get invested in the characters because you don't really get to know any of them. It was a very well made war movie, but the rave reviews it is getting confuses me.

I need to see Dunkirk this weekend to make up for spending money to see Valerian....

I agree completely.

I kind of liked the fact that we don't even know most of the characters' names, but we also really don't even get to know them as human beings. They're just props for the most part. There was a shocking lack of emotional weight to any of it.

I was also surprised that there was little sense of the scale of the problem on the beach. 1,500 extras or whatever Nolan had really didn't convey that there were 400,000 stranded.

I saw this in a legit, real-deal IMAX presentation --- film, not digital --- so it was great from a technical standpoint. It was just emotionally cold to me.

Good to see you voted in the poll anyway.

Yeah it just kind of feels like nothing really happens. The story is so thin and none of the characters are very well defined. It's just kind of a string of scenes that don't feel cohesive. Between the stuff on the beach, the two French guys, the pilots, and the characters in the boat it just felt like too much and yet at the same time not enough. The characters that felt the most defined were the father and son and his friend on the boat. Again very well made and the acting is fine but I don't really know with this one. I've like all the Nolan films to date and just think he missed the mark here.

I have not seen it yet, but for some reason it reminds me of

Pretty damn amazing

Wish there was more ground battles though

I love Tom Hardy

I was the opposite. I wanted more aerial footage. That was THE greatest dogfight filmmaking I've ever seen. GTFOutta here with that CG bullshit that has planes flying around at an ungodly speed.

The only big negative I had with the film was that I couldn't tell the Ground soldiers apart among all those dark-haired guys. Seriously, it's the U.K. Throw in some blondes or redheads, for Pete's sake.

There's a Lie-MAX and 70mm available in my area. Which should I go to?

Liemax

Why LieMax instead of 70mm?

From my review page, Orbi-Wan Goes To The Movies:

Dunkirk (PG-13) - Confusing editing, lack of any character development, and a nearly incomprehensible timeline structure hobble an otherwise good war movie.

Christopher Nolan, acclaimed director of the Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar, Memento and The Prestige, performs a rather unique trick with his latest outing, Dunkirk. He has managed to take an important event in World War II, and turn it into an Inception-like puzzle that is likely to confuse many in the audience, even as it attempts to inform them of what happened in the English Channel and on the beaches of France in 1940.

The story of the evacuation of nearly 400,000 allied forces from Dunkirk is told from three different perspectives and, confusingly, three completely different timelines that eventually intersect - multiple times. There is the predicament of the troops like British soldier Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) on the beach, waiting for any sort of vessel to get them out of France, told over a 24-hour period, give or take. Then we have the English boat owner (Mark Rylance) who is contracted to head to Dunkirk to assist with the evacuation, told over a parallel (but not quite) 24-hour time frame. Finally, we spend time with a Spitfire pilot (Tom Hardy), fighting off German planes over the period on an hour, though his story stretched over the length of the movie.

Familiar faces pop up in the different timelines, as well, including Kenneth Branagh as a British naval commander, James D’arcy as an Army colonel, and Cillian Murphy as a soldier rescued after a ship is sunk. But we know nothing and learn nothing about any of the characters outside of their immediate service to the plot, so there is little emotional investment. However, there is tension aplenty in each of the stories/timelines and the pilot’s story is especially compelling. But….

The way Dunkirk jumps from one story to another, to different points in the timeline, eventually intersecting, splitting off, then intersecting again, is almost headache-inducing. There are a couple of incidents we see from three different perspectives, but at different times in the film. The structure becomes extremely non-linear, and because of this, Dunkirk feels disjointed at times.

That’s not to say that Dunkirk isn't a good movie. When we are keeping up with what’s happening, it is a perfectly serviceable WW II movie. It’s actually pretty straightforward, but kind of tame compared to other war movies like “Saving Private Ryan” or “Hacksaw Ridge”.

Maybe it's because I expect more from a Christopher Nolan film, but overall I don’t think this stands with his best work. I am only giving “Dunkirk” 3 out of 5 lightsabers.

NOTES FOR PARENTS: Dunkirk is rated PG-13 for war action and related violence, plus brief language. We see soldiers killed by bombs, bullets, drowning and fire, though it’s a lot less graphic than other war movies. The f-bomb is used twice, but there is little profanity otherwise.

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I found myself not caring for anyone on screen. Poor character development and editing were just disastrous. One of the weakest war movies I've seen in a long time.

The movie felt like an homage to his directorial style rather than the actual history and soldiers themselves.

I was reminded of Episode I with the constant cutting between land, sea, and air. I do feel like I'll revisit this though, I did enjoy it.

Well, I didn't care much for Interstellar OR Inception, so I guess this will be a rental for me down the road. Could never understand why Nolan is considered "great" - he's a competent director, but almost all of his movies have lacked emotional depth.

Absolutely. I've never understood the love for Chris Nolan. He's a good director but nothing special.

Dunkirk does not look like a good movie.

I think Dunkirk is Christopher Nolan's masterpiece. I loved it. I thought the actors were great, there wasn't a lot of traditional character development or dialogue, but rather a story told through faces, actions and experience. You care about everyone as a whole, not just one person. Thats one of the films strengths. And Christopher Nolan did that on purpose I believe, to make you feel like you are part of the war. Besides I've seen enough long drawn out war movies with actors talking about the girl they have waiting at home and the jobs they had at the local factory. This was something different. In fact I don't think it would have worked as well as it did with added runtime that included more traditional character exposition. I wouldn't call this a slow burn either, I thought the whole movie moved at a brisk pace and was engrossing at every turn. The camerawork and choreography throughout the whole movie was a stroke of genius. Hoyte Van Hoytema should have his name etched on an Oscar tomorrow, so should Hans Zimmer. I thought the non linear unfolding of the story worked great. Christopher Nolan really seems to illicit polar opposite responses. For Interstellar, The Prestige and this, I'm on one side and for the Dark Knight trilogy, I'm on the other.

4.5/5

Shame, because it is.

Masterful work. One of the best war movies in recent (and maybe not so recent) memory. Strong applause at the sold-out (real and laser projected) IMAX screening at the Smithsonian.

Here's the problem with the movies story. It has no context at all. You never understand if these men don't get off that beach and back home England most likely falls to Germany. Maybe all of Europe does too. But there is no way to understand its importance or impact watching the film.

How important Churchill's speech was following this rescue of 400,000 troops. Its all just lost..

It is a brilliantly shot film I seen it in 70mm liemax San Antonio palladium. Sound was stellar too. But yep man story wise it doesn't hold up.

It had good tention with nothing but as someone mentioned I have no idea in hell why they time jumped at all. It was not needed or used in any way that makes any damn sense. It only confuses....