Dunkirk Review: 8 Ups & 2 Downs

1. No, It Isn't Christopher Nolan's Masterpiece

There's been a lot of excited pre-release chatter about Dunkirk being the best movie of Nolan's career and, indeed, the masterpiece he's been working towards over the last two decades.

As immersive and technically astonishing as it is, it is neither a full-on masterpiece nor even remotely Nolan's best film. Though the economic storytelling and lack of melodrama does seem to show Nolan maturing somewhat as a filmmaker, this still doesn't reach the level of stylistic audacity and emotional involvement that, say, Inception or The Dark Knight mustered prior.

Even something decidedly "smaller" like Memento is arguably a much better film overall, but considering that Nolan hasn't yet made a bad movie in his career, and this is certainly leagues ahead of The Prestige and Interstellar, it "only" being great shouldn't feel like such a bad thing.

And now the complaining's all out of the way, here's everything that Nolan got right...