The film contains all of the ingredients for a top-notch WW I period piece however the result is hugely disappointing. The script fails to create characters that you care that much about. Most of the male actors are interchangeable. There is little fire to the acting (Kit Harington is particularly underwhelming) Sweden's Alicia Vikander is adequate. There are many close-ups of her pretty face and she is undeniably photogenic but her acting here does not match that of the cunning android in Ex Machina. A cardinal rule in film-making is broken;that is, one must show not tell. The film's narrative is brought to a halt during the many instances of voice-over narration and readings of letters from the front. The shots of the English country side are perfect for souvenir postcards. Some clichés emerge including the obligatory "send-off' of troops from the rail station with all the tears and waving of handkerchiefs. There are no battle scenes except for shots of young men sitting in trenches with carefully placed smudges on their faces. Towards the end there is an homage (rip off?) to Gone With The Wind featuring the overhead crane shot of acres of injured men lined up outside a hospital. What we have here is a real wrist-raiser (ie, I was frequently looking at my watch) This movie is dull, plodding, slow, uninvolving, sterile, stodgie and a crashing bore.
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