u/elmofirehat

Everything has become a matter of individualism. You are told to only focus on making your own (and families) life better. What happened to the community and how can we get it back?

Gah such mixed feelings.

Yes it's epic. The acting is great. Wasn't bothered by the accents or costumes. A lot of stunning wide shots.(I wish there were more). Love the Samantha Morton scene, really gave me the creeps in a great way. Last act was also great though the final fight went on a bit too long. Nolan also knows how to end a film with a bang.

A couple of medium to major gripes with this.

I think I hate how Nolan directs action. In a lot of scenes I just didn't understand where things were in relation to each other, or where characters were. A few times people (I think) got stabbed or injured and I didn't know how or where or by who. In one scene I think the trees were moving somehow but there seemed to be a shot or two missing to explain this. I didn't understand that the cyclops moves a boulder to shut them in as again it felt like a shot was missing that showed this maybe from the outside. A ship splits in half - I had no idea who was on which half and what was happening. The last fight choreography lacked some of the cohesion in something like Troy or John Wick. The siege of Troy too, I struggled to understand the geography of it all. George Miller and Spielberg are masters of this. Nolan is not. Same with Tenet, and Batman. A lot of the time on those it just feels like action is happening without you really knowing what is happening.

Second, whilst epic in scale I'm not sure I really cared about any of the characters. Bit tired of a stoic man's only flaw being that he cares too much for his men and keeping them alive. I liked Himesh Patel the most, and his fate should have been a gut punch. It was not. And I cared for the old hunting dog more than anyone else and I don't think that's a good thing. Female characters, as ever with.Nolan, mostly one dimensional, but to be fair almost everyone was in this.

Nolan is a master of some things but as mentioned elsewhere I think his commitment to IMAX here was a hindrance. Like 1917, which I think over committed to the oner to the detriment of the film overall, I think Nolan committed to using IMAX despite it actually making the film overall worse. It's okay to use it sometimes, but use the best tool for the job on others.

It's not bad, it's also not great. I want it to do well so we get more epics on screen, I just don't think this would crack a list of the greatest epics of all time. Lawrence of Arabia, Ben Hur, RAN, LoTR, Gladiator, 2001. All better.

Still, worth a watch. Nolan still flawed in some big ways mind.