Film Shapes

It's been a while since I saw this but I reckon I've made up my mind about it. It shouldn't have taken so long to decide that it's not bad, but there you have it. Of the trilogy, it's probably the weakest in my opinion. None of the character building of ROTPOTA (apes, of course, not humans) and none of the power struggle between Caeser and Koba in DOTPOTA . And for all its nicely shot vistas and the odd battle here and there, the Golden Gate Bridge sequence in Rise is still the best thing across the trilogy. One of the best action sequences ever, I'd venture. But I said this was not bad so some credit must be given. It goes without saying the CGI is first class, improved yet again from the previous two films. As seen in  Rogue One , getting humans out of the 'uncanny valley' is still a hefty task but they've got the apes sorted with this one. There's an interesting way of getting to the Charlton Heston Planet of the Apes. Corneliu...

So I managed to sneak in a viewing of Dunkirk on Friday morning before work. Pretty happy with the decision. So far, it's the best film I've seen all year. Most of this is down to Christopher Nolan and his command of time. The way he interweaves the three strands of the plot - the beach, the sea and the air - is sublimely novel. If you're not careful, you may even be a little confused at the overlapping timelines (it took my penny a few minutes to drop). Nolan has played with time as a character before of course, in Memento , Inception and Interstellar but here he takes it one step further. The 'snowball' effect is used for the entire film - each situation is established unfussily, then the crosscutting between the 'theatres' picks up the pace until they merge at a single point. I can't remember seeing an entire film play this way. Many films do it in the final third or so (Nolan himself uses this technique) but the full film!? As a great man once...