The other night, I decided to watch a movie that I brought about a couple of years ago but never got the chance to watch this movie because I am more into television series now. That movie that I finally got to watch the other night is titled 1917, an action/drama/war movie about world war 1, and that is the one that I am reviewing here now.
1917 movie was released on December 25, 2019, almost two years ago here in the United States, but there are other different release dates for this 1917 movie in other countries. Still, the date mentioned above is here in the United States of America. The theme of the movie 1917 is war, especially in world war one, and it focuses on two soldiers in British Army from the United Kingdom. One of the British soldiers was ordered to deliver a message from the unit’s leader to another unit’s leader to stop them from attacking the enemy, which is germans because these germans already had everything planned and expected that they would be attacking them, so these germans have all advantages as on the allied side wasn’t aware of. As soon as this unit’s leader found out about the enemy’s knowledge of their other unit’s preparing to attack them, the unit leader needed to immediately send a message to that unit. They have chosen two soldiers to deliver that important message for that unit’s leader.
They picked corporal Blake to be the one to deliver that critical message to stop the attack before it happens, and that corporal Blake got to take one person with him. Hence, he picked the one sitting by the tree named corporal Schofield to come along with him to deliver that message to the other unit across the enemy’s line. When corporal Blake picked Schofield, the race was on, and nothing stopped them from delivering that critical message to the other unit! They started running, discovering the enemy’s abandoned place going through them running then they got bombed thanks to a rat they envy stating that even their enemy’s rat is bigger than theirs. That rat jumped on a trigger line that ignited the bomb, nearly blowing these two soldiers. But they got lucky with minor injuries; after they blew off the dust, the race was back on, and they knew that the time was running out fast. As both journeyed through the enemy’s line, they started to bond with each other, but that only lasted so short because one of the two boys were killed by a surprise attack from a german that crashed his plane when he was screaming for help, and these two boys weren’t sure if it was their foe or was it their woe? Ended up it was the enemy, as he stabbed corporal Blake. Corporal Blake was the one whose leader was called upon to deliver the message; after getting stabbed, corporal Schofield shot the enemy and rushed to corporal Blake trying to revive him, but unfortunately, no luck. In his last words, he asked corporal Schofield to find his brother, who happens to be in that unit that they are rushing to deliver the stop-the-attack message to, giving him the last words along with his wish. After he died, corporal Schofield would not give up, so he stood right back up, and the race was back on again, but this time alone.
So, he started off running through many bombs, through muds, through enemies, through jungles, through bridges, and as he approached closer to the destination, he ran into a sniper where he and the enemy ended up shooting at each other. Corporal Schofield finally got him, so he ran into the building and climbed up the stairs to look at the sniper, only to get shot by the same sniper, but he was dying. Corporal Schofield fell backward, and his brain was bleeding out. A few hours later, he woke up and looked around, then realized that the clock was coming close to an end, so he started running again while injured.
Then he was chased by the enemy, jumped into the canal, and it led him to fall over a giant waterfall which almost to his death but he somehow barely survived so he swam over to the other side only to realize that he had made it to the destination but did he made it in time? Oh, and also, did he get to see corporal Blake’s brother? What happened after he found himself approaching the destination?
That is where you will have to find out by watching the movie 1917! I have shared only a few spoilers as there is more to that, as I have left out some of the things that I think you would want to find out by yourself. But the cinematic work, the characters, and the actors that portrayed them are good. However, I admit that I found myself trying so hard to say that the movie is that great like the critics reviewed them, such as because it was not that great. These critics raised my expectations for the 1917 movie so high that it was not met. Although, I will say that the movie is good and is a good movie about war. It is a war movie. The cinematic work is very good; these actors did a great job playing these characters, and all is good, but one thing was not, which is the storyline. I believe that this storyline has a huge potential that can be dramatically improved, but they did not take the chance to do so. It almost feels here it is, and it is good enough for you! The movie is drama and has action, but they also lack that area. Overall I think that they are half-baked it. I am a big-time fan of war movies, my favorite movie is Apocalypse Now, and I am also a fan of some other war movies such as Platoon, Midway, and whatnot, but this 1917 movie never will be close to my top war movies list.
Would I recommend it? Yes, I would. It is still good but not great. This movie is cinematic, and the characters but the storyline need a big-time improvement. The visual of the film is great, but just the story requires a lot of change, in my opinion. It feels like there is an imbalance in the storyline for the movie, there is action and drama, but most of the time, it is all about a character races against the clock. Something should be added to that storyline to balance the storyline itself out a little bit, but it is not. The movie has an 89% rating by rotten tomatoes, but I respectfully disagree with that rating; it is lower than that, in my opinion. It has exciting parts, but again the story of the movie is not balanced, which is the most annoying thing about the 1917 movie. What is going for the 1917 movie is the cinematography; the visual of the movie is great, and if it were not for that, I would have rated the 1917 movie even lower than the rating that I am giving.
With that said, I am rating the 1917 movie a 3.2, which translates pretty good.
Imbalanced Storyline But Everything Else Good
Movie title: 1917
Movie description: April 6th, 1917, the Western Front. Two British soldiers are sent to deliver an urgent message to an isolated regiment. If the message is not received in time, the regiment will walk into a trap and be massacred. To get to the regiment, they must cross through enemy territory. Time is of the essence, and the journey will be fraught with danger.
Date published: December 25, 2019
Country: US
Duration: 1H 59M
Director(s): Sam Mendes
Actor(s): Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay, Daniel Mays
Genre: Action, Drama, War
Overall
Bottom Line
1917 movie is all about two soldiers being ordered to deliver an important message by the unit’s leader to another unit’s leader across the enemy line, so the unit leader is chosen corporal Blake to deliver the message and allow corporal Blake to pick one to join him which he picked the one that was sitting against a tree which happens to be corporal Schofield. After picking corporal Schofield, the race was on because they were on a clock to deliver the message to the other unit leader across the enemy’s line and the message that they needed to deliver was to tell them to stop the attack because the enemy already expected that the allied soldiers would be attacking them. Hence, the enemy had everything planned out, which gave them plenty of advantages as the allied soldiers had no clue about this except that the first unit leader, which is why that message was so important that need to be delivered to that other unit to let them know about this to stop the attack before they start attacking that has no chance of succeeding.
Nothing can stop these two boys from getting the message to the other unit. Unfortunately, something did stop one of the two soldiers. One of the soldiers, named corporal Blake, was stabbed by surprise when he tried to assist a crashed pilot without realizing that the pilot was actually with the enemy. So, from there, it was all on corporal Schofield to do everything he could to get the message to the other unit’s leader, but he did it alone and had to go through many things. The clock was running out, as he was injured, but his willpower persisted, and he finally made it to the destination but did he make it in time? Find out by watching the 1917 movie!
The cinematic work for the film was good; these actors also did a good job portraying these characters, but the biggest problem, in my opinion, that the 1917 movie has was the storyline. I feel that it is almost as if they made it and said that’s good enough rather than seriously being creative in the storyline for the movie. There were few actions, and most of the time, it was a character that raced against the clock. It should have something else, more creative, added to it, such as something more to balance it out because it feels like there is an imbalance to the storyline of the 1917 movie.
I recommend the 1917 movie; I am a big fan of war/military film. One of my all-time favorite movies is Apocolypse Now, but 1917 definitely will be at the bottom of my liked list of war/military movies, unfortunately. Rotten Tomatoes rating for the 1917 movie is 89%, but I respectfully disagree with that; I am puzzled to see why they would rate that high because it is not that great, but it is good, though. Again, the biggest problem for the 1917 movie is that it is not balanced out in the storyline, which gets a bit annoying as you watch further of the 1917 movie. What is great going for the movie 1917 is cinematic and the visual of the movie, which is great. If it weren’t for cinematography, I would rate this even lower than the rating I am giving the 1917 movie for.
I am giving the 1917 movie rating of 3.2, which translates pretty good.
Joshua “Joshie” Sullivan.
Follow JoshiesWorld on the social media! Also, subscribe to JoshiesWorld; you will be notified when a new article or review is posted via your e-mail! Please spread the word about JoshiesWorld by sharing the website, articles, or reviews on your social media by using the social buttons at the bottom. Please donate or shop the merch to support JoshiesWorld! Thank you so much!
