Dunkirk

[flyingluke]

If you haven't seen it - see it!!

 

Worth it for the Spitfire alone.

 

Cracking movie

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

If you haven't seen it - see it!!Worth it for the Spitfire alone.

Cracking movie

Well ... my wife and I booked a few days ago and had been very much looking forward to seeing it today, and I must say we were very disappointed.

 

I really considered leaving around the half way mark but did see it through to the end, and even managed to stay awake - just.

 

Frankly I thought the way the story-line was dealt with - endless repeats of the same event but showing the ways it was seen through different peoples' eyes - was just plain boring.

 

I certainly didn't have any complaints about the realism of the 'noise and shock' of war, in my mind it beat all other war movies in that single respect.

 

The dog-fighting was unconvincing, it appeared more like an effortless and leisurely Sunday afternoon fly. Clearly no-one on the advisory team had ever bothered to take a jolly in a warbird to get an idea of what's actually involved. And the Spitfire that ran out of fuel at about 1000ft, then glided to the coast, shot down a Stuka conducting dive-bombing, and spent the next 7 minutes of screen time gliding along beach after beach without losing any height ... yeah, right!

 

I blamed myself for the disappointment, since I took the word of the promoters that it was 'one of the best war movies ever produced', and I hadn't actually read the reviews. So I did that when I got home and found it wouldn't have made any difference, the general concensus is that this movie's something special. I must be getting old and jaded I guess.

 

2/5 is my rating.

 

 

[rgmwa]

I thought it was OK, but not great. Wouldn't see it again. The storyline was disjointed and they must have shot the same poor old Me109 down three times. I read the book by Joshua Levine who was a historian/advisor for the film. They did land the Spitfire (owned by Dan Friedkin) on the beach. After it landed, the plane got stuck in the soft sand, and the crew had to run over to help push it out before it was able to take off ahead of the in-coming tide and before it got dark.

 

rgmwa

 

 

[hihosland]

I enjoyed the film,

 

The Spitfire that managed to fight its own war long after it ran out of fuel did stretch credibility more than a little.

 

The several drowning scenes I thought were well constructed and displayed,

 

And the dilemma of conflicting demands and pressures placed upon various commanders portrayed well.

 

 

[Geoff13]

Frankly I thought the way the story-line was dealt with - endless repeats of the same event but showing the ways it was seen through different peoples' eyes - was just plain boring.

I actually thought that was what made the movie so good. Different perspective from different angles of the same thing. As it would be and airman would have seen it differently to a sailor or a soldier or for that matter a civilian boaty. As for the Spitfire doing all those things to me it was obvious that they were using the 3 Aircraft as a method of showing the way that different pilots handled the situations throughout the day.

 

I am guilty of thinking it was a great movie that depicted the reality of war in a rather unique way.

 

So different to all the John Wayne/Kurt Douglas war movies that I grew up with.

 

Isn't it great though that different people can see exactly the same thing and yet have such different memories of it. (Catch 22)

 

 

[Sloper]

Promised so much, delivered so little.

 

regards Bruce

 

 

[Akromaster]

Loved the movie but cgi for flight scenes could have been done better.

 

My list of wrong things with these scenes:

 

1. Why were they flying at 2000ft. Is that historically correct for the Dunkirk event? As a fighter you'd want to be pretty high even if you were hunting low flying bombers. They were even lower than the bombers! Good way to get shot by climbing up to the bombers' rear guns. Did you notice too that one minute they were on the deck, the next they were in the clouds!

 

2. The formation was way too tight. Historically they flew close formations but not that close...in the movie they were almost wingtip to wingtip.

 

3. The Luftwaffe escorts on the deck with the bombers? I doubt that...they were told to stick with the bombers but that came later as a result of the losses during the BoB, which the pilots did not agree with.

 

4. The English pilot was a terrible shot during the dogfights at what looked like 100ft behind the me109s and the bombers. Then while his engine is dead he pulls off a miraculous shot to take out a high speed diving Stuka!

 

5. When the spitfire is gliding after his engine cuts out, his flaps are clearly lowered for landing and they only had one stage of flaps. At what looked like 1000ft off the deck, he manages to turn the plane in the opposite direction to take out the Stuka and glide out of range of his mates below.

 

What did seem correct is the spitfire firing .303 guns...no cannon rounds which is correct for the earlier spitfires. There was even a scene where the 109 does a negative G dive and the spitfire coughs black smoke trying to follow due to the carby in use at the time.

 

Other than the flying bits, I thought the movie was quite intense and a good watch.

 

 

[Cosmick]

I was expecting the scale of the event to be recognised, 1000 small boats (yeah cgi req'd), 350,000 + rescued. Was a good movie about a small bit of a big event.

 

 

[Marty_d]

My father's day gift was to have a couple of hours away from the kids and see Dunkirk.

 

I thought it was pretty good - the tension was certainly there for the entire movie. I can understand the comments from others about the flying scenes, but I thought it was a damn good effort overall!

 

Well worth it for me.

 

 

[onetrack]

No film could ever deliver the full-blown reality of a genuine warfield. The noise, the smoke, the flying projectiles, the raining down of shells and mortars, the constant mind-numbing explosions - and on land, in hot, dry conditions - the huge amount of dust raised - has to be personally experienced, to understand what a total CF, a genuine war zone is.

 

The very fact that dedicated soldiers can continue to move forward against all odds, whilst watching their mates die, drown, being blown to pieces, and suffering major, life-threatening and gory injuries, is just amazing in itself.

 

Add in poetic and artistic licence into a film, and you cannot expect it to fully resemble the real thing.

 

 

[cscotthendry]

Just watched this today. I thought they did a great job at keeping the tension up throughout the movie. Sure you could pick holes in the movie details, but name a movie that you can't. I think they portrayed the bravery that it must have taken to be involved there, quite well. The biggest letdown for me was Kenneth Branagh. I think he is one of the most overrated actors in the industry. People like to compare him to Olivier, but he's not a pimple on Olivier's bum.

 

The flying sequences were reasonable, but the CGI wasn't all that great. Get beyond the details and soak up the dramatic tension and IMO, it's a good movie.

 

 

[shafs64]

I sure we all sit there with our wives at the movies and say that's not real and that plane would never take off like that

 

 

[Nightmare]

I thought Dunkirk was good. As an after thought, I realized that there were no unblurred German soldiers in it, the German aircraft were clear though. To me, it reinforced the claustrophobic atmosphere of the private hell soldiers would feel in such a conflict, especially one where they are completely surrounded except from the sea, awaiting evacuation, and constantly under attack.

 

 

[Marty_d]

I reckon it was some of the better flying scenes in movies - hell, at least they used the right aircraft! If you remember, "Top Gun" used Northrop F5's as MiG-28's. Obviously easier these days when you can CGI in a Bf-109 when you need one though.

 

 

[Nightmare]

I reckon it was some of the better flying scenes in movies - hell, at least they used the right aircraft! If you remember, "Top Gun" used Northrop F5's as MiG-28's. Obviously easier these days when you can CGI in a Bf-109 when you need one though.

Apparently the Bf-109's were not really Bf-109's, they were Hispano Buchon HA1112 built for the Spanish Airforce under license by Messerschmidt. The yellow painted noses on them came out well after the Battle of Britain, so therefore, no German aircraft at the time the movie is set in were painted in this way. Apparently, the movie makers wanted the yellow nose for primarily safety reasons, and to distinguish better who the bad guy is.

 

 

[shafs64]

I haven't seen the movie but i heard they used 109G and maybe a 109K,

 

 

[Nightmare]

I haven't seen the movie but i heard they used 109G and maybe a 109K,

No, they used the Spanish versions, check out the noses on those models, they are quite different.

[shafs64]

Ok i am thinking of seeing the movie today. I will be able to get a better look.

 

 

[Nightmare]

The Bf109F

 

 

The Bf109G

 

 

The "109"'s used in Dunkirk and The Battle of Britain movies

 

 

They were actually using the Bf109E at this time in history. Still, it's pretty good that they can get a flying Messerschmidt this long after the war...

 

 

[shafs64]

Yep i went and saw the movie. And yes they used the the spanish version. who knows how many second a spitfires guns would fire if you held the trigger till they ran out of bullets

 

 

[Nightmare]

Yep i went and saw the movie. And yes they used the the spanish version. who knows how many second a spitfires guns would fire if you held the trigger till they ran out of bullets

Between 10 to 20 seconds, so Dr. Google says...

[shafs64]

Well tom hardy's shooting and his glide went for a long time.

 

 

[shafs64]

[Old Koreelah]

Still haven't seen the movie; this makes it all the more interesting.

 

I'm of that lucky generation who didn't have to go to war, but I knew both a Spitfire pilot and a Bf-109 pilot and heard their stories of flying the actual aircraft.

 

 

[spacesailor]

Like Old Koreelah,

 

I too luckily missed all the war's, & had a friend ( Arno) who was a 15 yo German pilot, Gave him enough fuel to get to England but not enough to get back home.

 

Also told him to shoot himself to stop the Brits torturing him,(one bullet supplied ).

 

Big surprise when his captors took him home to stay awhile, he never went back to Germany.

 

spacesailor