“Dunkirk” — Coming to a (mobile) cinema near you

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The movie I’m most looking forward to this summer, as I’ve written on several occasions, is Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” an epic of survival during the darkest moments of World War II.

But that’s just me. As this movie has no comic book tie-in, Warner Brothers has to figure it’s going to be a hard sell. Getting the word out in a culture awash in capes and crusaders, superheroes and superheroines, and getting audiences jazzed up about a vivid piece of history barely beyond living memory is tough.

Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance and Kenneth Branagh? Not names to justify the cost of recreating the British evacuation of Europe, a defeat spun into victory, even if the director of “Inception” is behind it.

So WB is touring this “DUNKIRK Prologue Cinetransformer Movie Theater experience,” a mobile cinema with optimum projection, bone-rattling sound and a five minute stunner of a sequence from the film. It’s in Orlando Wed and Thursday at 5421 International Drive, in the parking lot of DXL Men’s Clothing. It’s due in Atlanta, next.

They give you a little “Dunkirk” swag — including a copy of the propaganda the Nazis (Germans) dropped on the trapped British Expeditionary Force and its French allies.

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And then you see a breathless, dazzlingly intercut sequence — two corpsmen toting a wounded friend through the chaos of the evac beaches, a businessman played by Oscar winner Mark Rylance, doffing his tweed jacket, overseeing two teens offloading plates ad other non-essentials from his pleasure boat, Royal Navy officers leaving a boatload of life jackets for them to take on.

Tom Hardy takes to the skies, dogfighting in a Spitfire, trying to keep the Germans from strafing the men on the beach.

 

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Rylance, gripped with concern, overwhelmed when his tiny boat passes a destroyer, packed to the railings with evacuated troops — explosions and music and tight closeups and Kenneth Branagh, as the Naval officer in charge of planning, his collar turned up so that he can look cool under pressure.

It’s stunning stuff, and I can hardly wait to see the finished film.

Meanwhile, this Big Trailer with the 60 seat surround sound/floor shaking dazzler of a sequence to the movie may be coming to a city near you. Atlanta by the weekend, and so on, up to opening day. 

Do I look excited to see it? No? Orlando. Too darned hot for that.

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That opening day is July 21, and kudos to Warners for indulging Nolan and making this effort to get the word out. “Wonder Woman” may pay the bills, but if there’s an Oscar contender from them this summer, it’s going to be a WWII movie with a top-drawer cast and a great history lesson tucked into the stunning effects.

About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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