Russell Taylor

The film is big on spectacle and does the huge bombastic set pieces well but it all felt a little telegraphed and predictable. I didn’t really engage with the new antagonists in the same way as before. The use of cgi was a little more noticeable in this movie compared to previous ones and while not entirely bad it did remove some of the weight and physicality present in the other films. It just took me out of the moment in ways I hadn’t felt in the other films in the series. The chase sequences also had a sense of unreality with vehicles that were far and distant suddenly closing gaps in ways that didn’t work so well for me. Maybe I’m just showing my age but I felt that while the first two original movies perhaps didn’t have the visual spectacle present in the new movies they felt more possible and realistic. There was a sense of dust, dirt, scuzz and nihilistic grime and nastiness not present in these films. This wasn’t a bad film in any real way but the fantasy aspect has been pushed much harder here. Perhaps I’d have been more generous approaching the new series as a totally separate thing to the original series.

A bit of a damp squib of a movie I’m afraid to say. Lacking in realism, generally quite hollow and without any of the tension you’d normally find in good war movies. The scenes with the brave and cunning Americans coming to the rescue of the inept Canadian and British ships seriously grated and the whole scenario with U boat commanders taunting the surface ships and howling like wolves at them was absolutely ludicrous. Not Mr Hanks finest hour :/