Like many others, I'm disturbed by the spectacular reviews this dismal piece of work has been receiving. I rarely write reviews of movies, but I'm concerned about what this may mean for the future of movies, so I thought I'd weigh in.

Dunkirk lacks several essential characteristics required by common sense to even earn the classification of the term "movie".

First, it lacks any semblance of a plot. The director assumes that we know the actual history, but this doesn't absolve him of the responsibility of providing one, which he has not. A character states the main issue early in the "movie", and a screen of words provide us an unsatisfying conclusion at the end. That's it. There's actually nothing else!

Second, it lacks actual characters. Everyone agrees on this point, so you don't need to hear it again from me.

Third, it lacks any semblance of dialog. What little there is is simply irrelevant or too muddled to understand.

Were it not for its other problems, Dunkirk might effectively be a silent movie. But it'd still actually be much less than a silent movie because what passes for its background "music" is a few spare notes from a few instruments, repeated over and over and over, ad nauseum.

Coincidentally, after I wrote this review, I discovered that someone actually made an eight-minute silent movie out of Dunkirk! It was much better than the extended version the rest of us suffered through. Indeed, it proved that there were no more than eight minutes worth of "movie" in it.

I think that critics have fallen for this "movie" in part due to the director's previous work and in part to prove their "brilliance"--that they can "appreciate" a piece of tedious tripe the rest of us do not. We see this all too often (think: modern art), and it's a shame. Let's face it, director Nolan phoned this one in and, for whatever reason, reviewers bought into it.

In short, Dunkirk is just plain awful--a scam that shouldn't have made it past the cutting room floor--a sad and inappropriate tribute to those who risked or lost their lives in the actual event.