Premise: A young man decides to enlist in WWI and quickly regrets it.
I'm really loving that the film industry finally remembered WWI and looks to run it into the ground like they did WWII. I've always found WWI the more interesting of the great wars. It's an even more pointless war, and there's just something fun about a war that had both tanks AND cavalry divisions.
All Quiet on the Western Front isn't a new idea. It's been made a few times in vastly different eras. The first movie came out in 1930 before the world knew about the Nazis. The second came in 1979. I haven't seen that one, but I'm sure the perspective is slightly different. It likely was informed by WWII and Vietnam. And now there's another. I don't remember how faithful this version is to the 1930 movie or the original text. It doesn't really have to be. The point of the movie is to show the disillusionment of the protagonist and that war just plain sucks. This movie plays like someone saw the already pretty grim 1917 and said "Enough with this Hollywood bullshit. Let's make it really grim." The movie shows just how disgusting the trenches were. And no man's land. It highlights the sucky conditions even away from the trenches. Occasionally jumping to Daniel Bruhl and the other high ranking officials deciding things was a brutal contrast. And that final assault before the 11am armistice is especially gutting.
The film is 2.5 hours and it has made its point within 15 minutes, so it is in danger of being repetitive; underlining the same points repeatedly. It's so technically impressive that I didn't mind. The sets are detailed and big. The flamethrower and tank sequences are pretty harrowing. It is a bit of a shame that all the troops, especially caked in mud, looked virtually identical, which made it hard to connect with anyone. That's history's fault though more than the film's.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
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