The cinematography obviously is stellar, but the aspect of this film seeming like one massive take is in my opinion more of a hindrance than an improvement. It's cool and unique in the beginning, but later on in the film (especially some combat scenes) there are instances where the film would massively have benefited from cutting to a different perspective.

1. It doesn't help in this case that the film starts with only two main protagonists. There are movies that pull off suspense quite well with only a few central characters (I am Legend / A Quiet Place, for instance), but this one in my opinion does not.

2. Because once you realise that since this film is one massive take, the only realistic stakes can be towards the end of the movie, (since if both of the soldiers fail at their mission early on and no new soldiers join their quest, the film can't really pan towards anything, so based on this, you now know that if the camera only follows those two around, its highly likely that at least one of the pair will survive for the near-entirety of the movie. And that's a big problem in a film depicting brutal war. (And if this didn't occur to you before, well, sorry :3).

3. It further doesn't help that a LOT of the scenes where something meaningful happens are already in the trailer. Carrying on from point #2., if you remember seeing a scene of a protagonist in this trailer that the movie hasn't caught up with yet, well, well well.... Good films only show trailers of their beginnings, and don't show anything from the 2nd or 3rd act. It's such an obvious and easily avoidable pitfall, and yet so many films try to stuff everything in the trailer just to make people see the film, at the expense of the film itself. Having seen the trailer beforehand since it was practically everywhere, this was very bad. The plane scene, and the running-trench scene, were particularly egregious examples of this. For me, this film was like reading a book, having already skimmed the synopsis.

4.When soldiers 'just miss' targets running in a straight line (not zigzagging) 15 meters in front of them, I won't lie, the film got annoying for me, that's literally one of the easiest shots to take. Shoot in the back, fin.

Positives: Acting was good to very good, soundtrack, sound editing, and set design were spot on, and the story premise was decent. I truly felt for the characters, and I hear that it's based on a true story too, which is also cool. But Saving Private Ryan had a similar premise, however that movie was executed way better.

Overall, I didn't feel like I had wasted my money. But I felt like this could have been so much better. For logical thinkers, and for those who have seen truly great cinema, this will definitely be overrated for you.