Written and directed by Christopher Nolan

Starring Tom Hardy, Fionn Whitehead, Harry Styles, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Barry Keoghan

I had all but forgotten about Dunkirk even existing before the glowing reviews started popping up. After the first great teaser for it, the second two main weak trailers that came out failed to generate any sort of hype. And with a 1 hour and 47 minute runtime were we all to blame for not really looking forward to a short WWII epic? But I’m glad the marketing team failed to do their job. I’m glad because Dunkirk is an incredible experience, and perhaps a great trailer might have taken away that surprise.

The movie is a triumph of sight and sound, with the visual effects team and sound department bringing their A games and producing some of the best technical work of the year. The cinematography of Dunkirk (by Hoyte van Hoytema, who also shot Interstellar with Nolan) is unbelievably gorgeous. The lighting and look of the film is majestic and strong all the way through, with not an awkward shot in sight. When he switches to handheld it’s not in your face or jarring. Together with Nolan he uses slow gliding cameras to follow the characters around from the side in wonderful wides and guide us across locations. There are also incredible sky high shots looking down on the areas which are a marvel in themselves to behold.

The scale of Dunkirk is always present, immediately we are thrown into in and are SHOWN not TOLD the situation. The film starts abruptly (it ends abruptly too) and forces us into tense sequence after tense sequence with little room to breathe. It’s a 100 minute ride, the action is almost nonstop and never fails to generate suspense or excitement. This is as riveting a time at the movies as I have had all year.

This is the best of Christopher Nolan, while strikingly missing all his usual weak trademarks. His preference to cut early on action and dialogue (which has lead to some bad moments even in his great works) never has worked better than here. The movie moves along swiftly while also dedicating enough time to visually establish the beach, the sea, the planes, and all the major players. The dialogue is sparse and sometimes almost inaudible (cause of IMAX cameras, especially if you see it in IMAX) but it is mostly there as a backdrop. You learn everything you need to know from the visuals, from the grand scale epic filmmaking Nolan is known for and here he delivers epic moment after epic moment. After the first attack on the beach and an amazing slow motion shot I was sure this would be one of the year’s best films.

And I haven’t brought up Hans Zimmer yet, with a mindblowing, near 100 minute unstoppable score. Zimmer’s music might very well be the best element of the movie, since it is crucial in constantly keeping the pressure on. He used Nolan’s own pocketwatch to create a time based theme, which reminds us always that these men in this story do not have any. I’m not kidding, Zimmer’s score plays for the ENTIRE movie aside from two or three very brief pauses. And it’s never ever distracting, it only amps up every scene.

This is as prime an example as any of a director’s movie. It all relies so heavily on an audio visual experience with a mastery of understanding how to tell a story through the edit. The editor, Lee Smith, and Nolan cut from the 3 major locations of the beach, the sea, and the sky seamlessly, and so we are always experiencing intense action as they cross cut from all the dilemmas until they eventually do intersect in the final moments. We spend a week on the beach, a day at sea, and an hour in the sky with the characters (sounds weird, it’ll make sense when you see it). And all the actors rock, all in roles that require them to be at their absolute best. The entire film is what the actors can show with their faces and eyes, so much of it is reaction. And no wonder they were all able to do it, Dunkirk has real sets with real people and real extras and real planes and real ships. Everyone must have felt so alive and authentic on set. This is what happens when you don’t have them stand around staring at green screens all day. The CGI in Dunkirk is minimal. I’m sure there was some, but my eyes could never detect it. Look what you can do with 100 million budget and talented people. Compare that to Alien Covenant, which also had near identical budget of 97 million and that’s the worst looking piece of shit I’ve seen all year. Almost entirely CGI with its creatures and sets and it’s garbage, absolute TRASH.

But yes, the actors. So many famous faces and yet all so believable. Even Harry Styles is good here. And Tom Hardy giving an incredible performance while being entirely inside a plane. And some great short pieces of dialogue that are said in the most interesting and epic ways by people who believe they are really there. And the movie looking amazing around them all the way through.

I believed everything I saw in Dunkirk, although several times I was momentarily confused because of the nature of how intense some of those moments are, but later I always did regain a sense of things. A complaint you might hear about this film is that there are no strong characters, and they are all weak and just there. Well that’s the point. The movie’s focus is on the EVENT itself, the rescuing of hundreds of thousands of cornered men on the verge of being overrun by the Germans. Weak characters won’t cut it for something like Rogue One, because it is paramount in that kind of movie to have people to be invested in or you won’t care (which is why I didn’t). Rogue One also had zero clue about musical clues, and it was as if the composer and director never met each other and the editor blindly threw his music onto the movie without watching it.

But anyway, Dunkirk. Its short runtime was a brilliant way to tell the story, to focus on the positive and inspirational message of its outcome. The Germans are never seen (except for one brief shot where they are out of focus), and never called Nazis, only referred to as “the enemy”. You see the French and British get shot at and bombed a lot, but not the faces of the Germans doing it. These were all great choices because it is an uplifting tale of survival against trying odds, and it’s about hope and alliances. There is really no time to linger on any one person, and as such you don’t learn most of these peoples names. But it works, it works because you then begin to understand the scale, hundreds of thousands of people trying to evacuate a doomed situation. To put us in these scenarios you’ve got to show what is happening and how it is happening. We get epic grand scale filmmaking in lieu of pages of dialogue, and the movie is all the better for it.

I saw this film at the Udvar Hazy, the true IMAX screen in Virginia, which was able to properly display the film in 70mm and 65mm. And yes, the whole movie was shot in IMAX. Do not see this movie on a tv screen or a regular theater, you will rob yourself of one of the year’s best rides. I can easily see myself being disappointed if I had watched this on a normal screen. The visuals must be displayed in their best and brightest and biggest formats, and to hear that ear shattering amazing sound design. With bullets and explosions and all the best audio work you could hope for to suck you in the story. And Hans Zimmer’s score losing its mind. And all the actors hitting every single one of their marks. And Nolan and Smith and Zimmer hitting all the musical cues. And what a magnificent and poetic way to show the fate of Tom Hardy. And man, what an opening shot. What a way to start it all. And the plane battles are all insanely good and insanely well shot. This is a great film, in almost a classic sense. It looks and moves and feels like a real film, I was shocked by its effect after all the superhero movies I’ve seen recently. And it wiped The Dark Tower outta my eyes. A thrilling movie going experience. But don’t fuck around and see it on a shit screen. Go to a real IMAX theater or do not bother going at all.