As for the 'critical praise' goes, I understand Nolan tried to capture here a macro point of view of the historic event/evacuation story of Dunkirk but it turned out another disappointment (after Interstellar)! Thing is most of the epic & classic war movies comes with an individual or a set of characters, backed up by a rich screenplay that eventually made us started to care for them while we witnessed the horror of war to gradually unfold with a graceful touch of heart or humanity at some point in the story. In Nolan's Dunkirk, the single character development was minor issue with mere importance, as I guess he was more interested to depict the event as a "character" itself that's facing a struggle to survive in one of the most awfully cornered situations in the history of world wars for an allied force. Most of the "major characters" were either desperately trying to escape or determined to follow the course of their duties without much portraying emotional aspects of their convictions. Frustrating part is, after all these years it was a great opportunity (missed!) for a film maker like Nolan to really make a remarkably true epic war movie based on such an intriguing war event like Dunkirk...started from the point of Nazi war plan to skillfully corner the Brit & French allied force and their historic rescues at the end! I understand that not every war movie needs to be character driven with great cast like PATTON, BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN or SCHINDLER'S LIST and there was even war film made in such approach where they remarkably portrayed an horrifying event of war without much focusing a set of characters i.e. COME AND SEE (one of the best war movies ever made, IMO) but Dunkirk sadly failed to left any sort of moving impression on me as a viewer.

Though the presence was there but directly (with characters) there wasn't much portrayal of German enemy side in Dunkirk. The irony is actually the 'real enemy' were flat & one dimensional characters and the only real winner in this movie was cinematography, stunning!