Bardlerx Strictly average movie

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Miles-10 I am confident that I have never before started a review by complimenting the set designers. Comparing the vintage still photos of soldiers in World War I trenches shown at the beginning of the movie to the trenches in film itself, you can see that somebody with an eye for detail recreated the look of the trench and the costume designers did a good job with the men's uniforms. The bad news is that that is one of this movie's few strong points. For example, the view of no man's land (NML) - the ground between the opposing trenches - shows a green field. It should look like a brown, pock-marked wasteland, which has been captured in many other WW I movies.The whole effect of "The Trench" is that of a filmed stage play. It could easily be transferred to the stage without losing much and maybe even gaining something. That is to say, the movie is not opened up much. Still, as a WW I buff, I enjoyed it.The actors are good, and the outline of the story is illustrative of typical situations in the war. However, the specific dialogue might be a little too 1999 rather than 1916. The film does remind us that wars are fought by men who are still boys and concerned about the things young men are obsessed by. One general situation that jumps out is the promise to the men that they would go into the enemy trenches after bombardment and after previous waves of a British attack and would not encounter any living enemy. (Mopping up, as my WW-II-veteran father called it.) But this was a typical false promise of the strategy used by both sides because the defenders would always cover themselves adequately so a majority would survive the bombardment, and they would almost always be able to get reinforcements into the trenches faster than attackers could make it across NML, and the preliminary bombardment would 1) warn the defenders an attack was coming and 2) chew up the ground making it harder for the attackers to cross, including merely rearranging the barbed wire instead of cutting through it. The result was that being the defender was always advantageous, and being the attacker was always disadvantageous in trench warfare. That's why most of the battle lines on the Western Front remained static for about four years.I would recommend this movie as worth seeing for world war buffs and Daniel Craig fans, although it likely won't be anyone's favorite movie.

SimonJack The focus of "The Trench" obviously is on the human aspects of the British men who have gone to war in World War I. It does a good job of portraying the British soldiers with their emotions, thoughts and trepidations about their circumstances in the trenches of northern France. But it also seems to distort some of the human trappings and demeanors of the time. When movies impose modern mores and culture on the past, they distort that time and its culture and history. Thus, people who don't study such things or have knowledge of the times wind up with an inaccurate notion of history or of the reality of that time. Two things seem obvious as cultural distortions in this film. The first is the casual, almost disrespectful attitude and unruliness of the soldiers. This isn't something that happens just once or twice, but frequently. While all military throughout history likely has had some humor and playful banter among troops at times, it seems to be more of the rule among this platoon of Brits. The second is in the language. Again, all military throughout history likely has had some use of foul or rough language. But here, it seems that this 1916 platoon of British soldiers has adopted early 21st century British street talk (is it really that vulgar among society in England today?). And, I doubt that the British may always have had more vulgar mouths than we Yanks. But, by the standard of this film, the Brits make the service times of my family, from WW II through Vietnam, seem like baby talk. There may be any number of other distortions as well. Anthony Strachan, who plays Horace Beckwith, is very good in his role. But I doubt that a man so much over weight would have been conscripted or allowed to join the British Army then, or any time. I knew some men a little over weight at my boot camp, but they were whipped into shape by the end, usually with much less weight to carry around. The men in this film seemed almost constantly to be smoking cigarettes. Cigarette smoking grew immensely during WW I, but it wasn't yet to the point shown in this film among British soldiers. In a long documentary film of WWI that came with the DVD of this movie, I didn't see a single scene of men smoking cigarettes on the French, British and German lines. But, several scenes showed Allied soldiers in the trenches smoking pipes. The last couple of gross inaccuracies are in the setting. The movie folks did a credible job building the set of trenches – except for one thing. Where is the water and mud? The Allied trenches of WWI were notorious for their foul water and mud, yet we don't see any of that here. And, the scene of the battlefield that the Brits have to charge onto is a lush green meadow. That was almost laughable. Both sides had been bombarding that area for days on end. The land was a desolate wasteland. The distorted portrayal of the conditions and culture are significant enough to cost this film two stars, so I can rate it no higher than six stars. I base that mostly on the fine performances of the cast – all the actors. The setting of this film was in the days leading up to the first day of the British attack in the Battle of the Somme (July 1 to November 18, 1916). That first day – when this film ends – cost more than 60,000 British soldiers wounded or killed. It's considered the bloodiest slaughter in the history of the British Army. I mentioned a bonus documentary that came on the DVD with this film. "World War I: On the Western Front" is an excellent lengthy documentary of WWI. It is a CBS News documentary that shows only actual battle film of the French, British and German forces. It is narrated by actor Robert Ryan. That documentary is centered around the Battle of Verdun which cost more than 500,000 lives. It shows scenes all along the Western Front. Men are standing in deep water in the trenches. Men and machines try to move over drenched and muddy roads and fields. And, battlefields between the lines are a no-man's wasteland. Not a blade of grass, flower or tree can be seen. None of that was staged by Hollywood, but Hollywood (in the U.S. and abroad) would do well to study such actual war films to better and more accurately portray scenes in war movies.

bowmanblue 'The Trench' is basically a World War 1 drama with a host of 'soon-to-be-famous' faces, including Daniel Craig, Cillian Murphy and Danny Dyer (the latter of which produces arguably one of the best performances of his career). It does its best to portray life on of the most depressing and violent conflicts in the history of man. But does it do it well? It's hit and miss. First of all, with a cast list as above, you can't really fault the acting. Everyone does their best with what's provided. However, where it falls down is the story. There isn't really one. But then that's hardly the film's fault, more a by-product of the subject matter. You can't really tell the story of the entire First World War in an hour and a half, so the film concentrates on just the build up to the first few days of the battle of the Somme.The characters just wander around, waiting for the final call from the military's top brass to send them over the top in an attempt to gain ground from the Germans. You get to know some of the soldiers and naturally care for their fates, it's just the whole film is really just about showing the conditions they had to live in, rather than telling a story which wasn't really there to begin with.I grew up on Blackadder (Goes Forth) and felt, despite its 'comedy' tag, it was somehow more touching than The Trench managed. Plus both the TV show 'Blackadder' and the film The Trench seemed to have similar budgets when it came to sets. I know it's a minor gripe, but everything in The Trench was 'filmed from above' so to speak. That way you never saw the sky (with the exception of about two shots). I know this might have been designed to heighten the 'claustrophobic' nature the soldiers had to live in, but it just felt cheap to me – like everything was simply filmed on a 'trench set.' Plus the soldiers' uniforms looked way too clean to be rolling around in mud for months on end! If you're looking for a film that shows the conditions of what the soldiers had to live in then this is it. If you want something with drama and poignancy then try Blackadder Goes Forth (plus it has humour, too). 'The Trench' isn't a bad film. It's just that it's hard to make a story out of just showing soldiers in the trenches.

Boba_Fett1138 When looking at this movie, it becomes obvious that it didn't had a very high budget. Not only its settings are kept cheap and simple but also the overall style and atmosphere of the movie. Nevertheless the movie is good enough and also serves its purpose well enough.In my opinion it's always interesting to watch a movie about WW I, since it's a subject that doesn't get much lighted in movies too often. It usually are small European productions like this one that handle the subject. It in my opinion makes WW I an underused part of history in the movie making business.It's a slowly told movie, set purely in British trench during WW I, in France, in the days before the battle of the Somme. One of the bloodiest battles in human history, with over one million casualties. Because the story is slow and set mainly at one location, it allows the movie to deepen its characters out and allow the actors to do their job and carry the movie.It's however definitely true that the movie is filled with far too many characters to put in a 100 minutes short movie. I'm sure the story and all of its characters would had worked out fine in a mini-series but it's a bit too much to put in a movie. It has as a result that none of the characters ever get really interesting- or fleshed out good enough to care about them. It makes the movie emotionally flat and even also quite boring at certain points, also since not really that much interesting is happening in the movie.The dialog and situations are also far too cliché to consider them good or original. The movie offers very little surprises and it makes "The Trench" perhaps a bit of an obsolete movie to watch.The actors still do their very best to carry the movie to an higher level. Daniel Craig is really superb in his role and he provides the movie still with some much needed emotions. It was also fun to see Cillian Murphy in a small and early role. Obviously too small to really make a lasting impression though.And than about the end battle. Well, when looking at this movie you should know better than to expect a big spectacular ending. If you already watched the first 90 minutes of this movie, you just know you're plain wrong to expect suddenly something big and spectacular. So in my opinion the ending just felt right and it was suiting with the rest of the movie. But obviously, it doesn't do much justice to the real battle of the Somme that was one of the biggest of WW I and also one of the bloodiest in human history. This obviously really doesn't show on screen however.Good enough to kill some time with. Just don't expect anything spectacular or emotionally powerful.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/