Review Detail

I enjoyed the original The Darkest Hour a bit more than I enjoyed Dunkirk, but in this edit the balance actually works very well between them.
One of the highlights here is the impressive perfection of all the audio and video edits.

The narrative becomes a different beast, shifting between London (the political, rhetoric and moral battle) to Dunkirk (the real, messy and desperate fight for survival). Some reviewers here said the this change in tone doesn’t work, but for me it worked very well. The film now alternates between intense tension and suspense (war council) with terror, fear and suffering (on the beach). For me (who liked the original The Darkest Hour more than Dunkirk) this works very well in contrasting the reality of what’s happening on the front line against the political battle, improving an already perfect drama following Churchill’s struggles.

Yes, the tone shifts are there but I’d argue that’s what makes it work; the 2 realities shown are completely different experiences of the same war, so the different cinematography, color palette and directing techniques are simply reflecting that. The final narrative, the flow of the story and the pacing are all impressively refined and polished.

The change of the Dunkirk part no longer being non-linear also improve things a lot. The whole story is now full linear and I found the characters and events feel a lot more grounded and real because of it.

Thank you for this masterfully done narrative building and editing. It keeps the best of both films and the final result is a masterpiece of filmmaking.