In my opinion, one of Christopher Nolan's biggest weakneses has always been his characters. Dunkirk "fixes" this problem by almost completely eliminating the concept of characters.

On the one hand, it lets Nolan focus on what he's best at: the technicals.

The cinematography is stunning, the editing and direction are pretty good (althought the constantly changing aspect ratio is very distracting). And the music is, once again, Hans Zimmer pressing his whole arm on the keyboard.

On the other hand, not having any real character makes many scenes feel like they drag for way too long and makes for a very dull experience.

If we knew something about any of these people maybe it would have been different.

Overall, it's not a terrible movie, but a very unmemorable one. Like most Nolan movies, it's technically impressive.

The lack of characterization makes it more bearable for me than something like Interstellar, but it does negatively impact what could have been a very compelling drama, instead of just a series of well shot battle sequences.