I was so looking forward to this movie. What a major disappointment!

The biggest problem: there is absolutely no sense created of how monumental was the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of men. No feel of the flotilla of pleasure boats it took.

The movie concentrates on a few vignettes that follow the trials of small groups of people, with each vignette overstaying its cinematic effectiveness. The effectiveness is made even worse by the attempt to tell 6 or 7 stories simultaneously - the back and forth between the stories becomes tedious quckly, as we revisit situations we had already lost interest in and forgotten.

But worse is the annoying film score from the usually dependable Hans Zimmer. I get the attempt to create a feeling of oppression using minimalistic composition techniques, but the effect here is what one feels when a car alarm is stuck open for a 30-minute stretch outside your home, with the owner of the car who knows where.

Seriously, I can believe people were raving about this flick. Awful.