1917 is a hell of a ride and for shure the best cinematography of the year. Mendes keeps the pace over the whole film and the sound editing is also great.

Esthetically 1917 reminds me a lot of a first person shooter where you always follow the protagonist, each scene seems scripted for maximum thrill. its a film ernst jünger might have enjoyed.

But when you compare 1917 to films like all quite on the western front, paths of glory or full metal jacket it lacks the portrait of the enemy as a human being. the germans are most of the time absent, and when the protagonists encounter them, they are sneaky, unthankful and -deserve- to die. shure in one of the last dialogs its said that war is meaningless, but what the viewer sees is a hero that survived the stahlgewitter. so its a good movie from the crafts, but it fails when you compare it to classics of anti-war-cinema, because in the end its all spectacle, non the less.