Firstly, and unrelated to the film itself, I couldn't help but snort at the intro to the IMAX cinema when they played a little film essentially telling me how much of a good time I was going to have. It was almost like some weird brainwashing technique to hypnotise you into feeling you'd made the best decision of your life. I still can't get over the fact that we paid £16 for tickets, but I spent the film with a man's head blocking the lower part of the screen. Anyway, enough ranting about overpriced cinema experiences.
The film was good. There was a lot of it that I liked. I'm personally not such a big fan of war films, and I don't like the feeling that people are trying to manipulate viewers into a sense of patriotism or nostalgia for something that is in essence the most diabolical aspect of human history. However, I don't think that was the message of this particular film. This film is a crash course in imagining all of the terrible ways it is possible to die, then dangling those possibilities in front of your face (with full surround sound).
I liked the fact that there wasn't much dialogue. I liked that we never really saw "the enemy". I also enjoyed the separate stories and chronologies because they involved a little legwork on the part of the viewer.
On an aside, I couldn't help but laugh when I saw that they'd given Tom Hardy another role where his mouth was covered and we couldn't really hear what he was saying. I kept thinking Bane in a plane, Bane in a plane whenever he came on.
But I liked the film, and I think I'll watch it again soon. 8/10
