Dunkirk sanitizes war

I agree with this review in one regard when it said:"The problem is that there’s such little characterization that there’s even less emotion, beyond fear. Only a few touch points in the entire film evoke an emotional response, and this is not a good quality in a war film, at least for me. It’s antiseptic."

Another said: "It’s a sanitized, disjointed depiction of the Miracle of Dunkirk. It’s a PG-13 snooze fest, war with the edges taken off and the music turned up to 11."

Another said: "Keeping within the boundaries of a PG-13 rating when the gravity of war should be anything but sanitized, Nolan's virtually bloodless attacks are the one element that doesn't ring with the same truth as what surrounds it."

The actual fighting scenes depict no gore or carnage, or even blood. Soldiers are shot down or bombed but we don't see the result of their killing. They are just props that do not convey the horrors of war like Hacksaw Ridge. It sanitizes war so I never really felt an empathetic connection to the victims, instead just seeing them as cardboard characters to drive the plot. For me a good war movie shocks me into the realization of its horrors, and its cost in lives and carnage. This one most certainly did not.