Sam Mendes gave us a technical masterpiece, a well-acted and well-shot movie that is another proof (after many other movies like AmericanBeauty, Skyfall, etc) of his brilliance as a director and a writter.
And yet, this is a terrible movie, way worse than Spectre. So what's wrong with this movie?
In my opinion, the first mistake was the choice of filming it like Birdman, in other words to film it as if there was a single take. While it worked well in Inaritu's movie, it has the drawback of making the world smaller. For example, in the first minutes, the two main characters walk from a pristine field to the front line as if they were 100m away, while in reality this trip would be several kilometers long. When they receive their mission, it says they have to walk 22 km though enemy lines, but they do it in about 1h30 (walk time, plus maybe 10 min in a slow-moving truck).
Futhermore, the geography make no sense, with 100 english soldiers (plus trucks) arriving from nowhere, a town that appeared in a place where it was previously seen as a non-urban area, the german and english troops positions are illogical. All these problems occur because Sam Mendes wanted to shot his move as TheOner.
Like in Dunkirk, there is also the problem of a movie focusing on english guys only, with only a few german and almost no french people. In a war that was mostly fought by German end French. It just doesn't feel right, as if it was a theater scene rather than the accurate depiction of historical events. The fact that there is never more than 1 or 2 enemy at the same time is also something completely unrealistic.
Finally, this movie is also ugly because of its political message. All german characters (without exception) are depicted as inhuman monsters fighting to the death; the german pilo who tries to kill the english soldier who just saved his life one minute earlier is an egregious example. On the contrary, english soldier are depicted as noble, the english officiers are Reasonable Authority Figures, a jarring contrast with other works like PathsOfGlory who do not apply this Black and White Morality to WorldWarI.
Technically beautiful, but utterly ugly movie
Sam Mendes gave us a technical masterpiece, a well-acted and well-shot movie that is another proof (after many other movies like AmericanBeauty, Skyfall, etc) of his brilliance as a director and a writter.
And yet, this is a terrible movie, way worse than Spectre. So what's wrong with this movie?
In my opinion, the first mistake was the choice of filming it like Birdman, in other words to film it as if there was a single take. While it worked well in Inaritu's movie, it has the drawback of making the world smaller. For example, in the first minutes, the two main characters walk from a pristine field to the front line as if they were 100m away, while in reality this trip would be several kilometers long. When they receive their mission, it says they have to walk 22 km though enemy lines, but they do it in about 1h30 (walk time, plus maybe 10 min in a slow-moving truck).
Futhermore, the geography make no sense, with 100 english soldiers (plus trucks) arriving from nowhere, a town that appeared in a place where it was previously seen as a non-urban area, the german and english troops positions are illogical. All these problems occur because Sam Mendes wanted to shot his move as TheOner.
Like in Dunkirk, there is also the problem of a movie focusing on english guys only, with only a few german and almost no french people. In a war that was mostly fought by German end French. It just doesn't feel right, as if it was a theater scene rather than the accurate depiction of historical events. The fact that there is never more than 1 or 2 enemy at the same time is also something completely unrealistic.
Finally, this movie is also ugly because of its political message. All german characters (without exception) are depicted as inhuman monsters fighting to the death; the german pilo who tries to kill the english soldier who just saved his life one minute earlier is an egregious example. On the contrary, english soldier are depicted as noble, the english officiers are Reasonable Authority Figures, a jarring contrast with other works like PathsOfGlory who do not apply this Black and White Morality to WorldWarI.