Terrible. First "battle"-scene: Soldiers supposed to storm an enemy position basically jog lazily along the top of the trenches, in daylight, no cover smoke or anything, only waiting to get cut down one by one by a german "machine gunner" who obviously never held anything even slightly resembling a machine gun in his entire life, shaking an trembling stupidly in an attempt to make us believe he is experiencing recoil (he is even totally out of sync with the actual fire rate as we hear it).
All the uniforms and all the equipment look brand new and unused, even after the men wearing them get shot to pieces and blown up by "mortar shells" (impact blast radius: 2 meters). No visible injuries or blood, except for when the director obviously mid-battle remembers that there must be some, so the surprisingly and consistently boring camera angle suddenly shows some hands and feet neatly spread out on the ground.
The soldiers say things like "they´re tearing us to pieces" and "not a place I would like to stay for very long". An US officer is supposed to freak out and lose it in the face of battle, but when one of the black soldiers (yes, they are the heroes in this story) hit him in the face twice, he snaps out of it and seems completely fine going forward. All forgotten now thanks to the slaps.
(What makes everything even more annoying, is that the guy playing the officer does a really good job. It must feel bitter having to waste your talent on this arrogant trash production.)
You get the idea. Don´t waste a minute on this.
I feel like I´m watching some mob money laundering project where everyone basically just wants to get the hole production overwith and go back to what ever they´re doing in real life.
Review of The Great War
