Jeffrey

In terms of visual cinematography, great movie. It does a fantastic job of selling a very gritty, raw appearance of 1945 Germany- columns of refugees moving past advancing Allies, Germans surrendering in droves, mounds of bodies being bulldozed into hastily dug trenches as the war machine grinds on. One thing I will say is that the guns and weapon sound effects, at least the small arms, were underwhelming and sounded artificial. The endless tracer rounds sounded and looked like lasers, which was largely disenchanting. In comparison to "Saving Private Ryan", as the modern WWII-movie standard, the small arms effects were disappointing. However, seeing anti-tank rounds glance off sloped armor and continue to burn well into the distance was pretty darn cool, and I did enjoy that. The movie's most glaring fallacy has already been mentioned before, but I'll add my own thoughts to back those previously mentioned. The characters were largely unlikeable, with no provided backstories save for mentions of more cultural natures, which were quite bland, and frankly, copy and pasted from predecessor movies. As the movie progresses, it becomes more and more difficult for one to grow attached to the tank crew- they commit consecutive war crimes in executing a prisoner (New Guy being forced by his own NCO -Brad Pitt- to do it, no less), execution of another prisoner (this time slightly more forgivable, as the prisoner was a German officer known for hanging Germans unwilling to fight for the Reich), and taking part in the looting of a "liberated" town and in the process, taking advantage of and insinuating the desired rape of the town's women. By the time the characters opt to make their final stand against insurmountable odds, I felt no love for them- this choice of last-minute heroism did not absolve the characters of their previous crimes or mindsets of animalistic instinct. When all but New Guy die (a familiar outcome), one isn't even moved to pity or mourn the crew's loss. Their "noble deed" in carrying out their orders and dying in the process is swallowed in their detestable personalities. One is left feeling no loss at their passing. Allow me to mention plot armor. As aforementioned, watching anti-tank shells glance off Shermans is pretty cool... watching it happen over and over again, but penetrate on the first shot against the "extras" was also disenchanting. Also, will someone please explain to me how that Tiger crew dispatched three tanks at 500yds plus, while they were on the move, but missed two or three kill-shots on SGT Fauxhawk's tank? I was left feeling, again, disenchanted by the obvious plot armor- it was about as obvious as Stormtroopers killing everyone but Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie. As a final note, watching the infantry tactics as they worked with the tanks left me feeling like I was watching LARPing. Long story short, the characters were unlovable, there was no deeper meaning as is found in classics such as "Saving Private Ryan" or "The Thin Red Line", the plot armor was obvious, and the small arms effects disappointing. But if you want some pretty cool tank-on-tank fighting, this is a pretty good watch. For this reason, namely visuals and watching tanks slug it out... kind of... I give two stars.