BLITZ Movie review | Saoirse Ronan | Steve McQueen | Apple

[@OldBluesChapterandVerse]

It’s very likely that Blitz won’t be on any screen in the entire state of Wyoming, where I live. But then I thought that about The Substance, too, and it played here (would love to know who planted the money tree in MUBI’s headquarters). Anyhow - Blitz has been right near the top of my 2024 watchlist since I first heard it was in development. London during the Blitz is fascinating subject matter (explored beautifully in what is arguably Sarah Waters’s best novel, The Night Watch), and McQueen is one of the best directors working today. And as someone who considers Charles Dickens the greatest English-language novelist of all-time, I’ve got no problem whatsoever with Dickensian flourishes.

[@BreakfastAllDay]

Hope it makes its way to you!

[@skyeblu1722]

It’s on Apple TV

[@SoulStylistJukeBox]

I watched this review hoping that at least one of you would mention my lifelong hero, Paul Weller, and YOU BOTH DID! Every review I’ve read for this film claims it’s the most “ordinary” film McQueen has ever made. I’m looking forward to it.

[@BreakfastAllDay]

Paul Weller is really good in a small, quiet role. We love The Jam!

[@ramirezs316]

I caught this at Austin Film Festival and was deeply disappointed by it. It felt strangely low stakes and glossy in a way his movies haven’t been. I would’ve guessed he’d give us the naturalism of a Dunkirk but it’s not even Empire of the Sun. Had me checking my watch then shrugging at the end. And I consider Widows a 5 star masterpiece.

[@David_from_Switzerland]

So happy that you guys loved Blitz! I saw it at the Zurich Film Festival one day after its world premiere in London, and I was absolutely riveted by it for all the reasons you mentioned in your review. I was very surprised to see all the lukewarm early reactions to the film, so I'm happy to see two of my most trusted critics share my enthusiasm for it. It's a shame that it seems to be getting only a limited theatrical release before streaming on Apple TV+...

[@TropeAnatomy]

Oh wow. Was looking forward to it for a while then saw some lukewarm reviews which tempered my expectations. But now I'm psyched again !!

[@myytchanneldinakoha8498]

Temper it again.

[@davidfilmexpert]

I saw this movie in a theater at a festival and the experience was so invigorating and everyone loved it. This film is underrated, I'm so glad you both are champions of it unlike many critics. 👍

[@BreakfastAllDay]

Glad you loved it too!

[@jja8750]

@@BreakfastAllDay Why do you feel like most other critics are respecting, but not loving this film? Most reviews are good, but not great. I just saw it at my local arthouse and share the same feelings as you two! What gives? :)

[@BreakfastAllDay]

@@jja8750 Not sure! It's weird. Glad you enjoyed it as well.

[@atari2602]

6.5 is the best I can do here. There's like five different movies here; none of them particularly gripping, and when the movie switches perspective, it loses steam every time. The nightclub sequence they loved is shot nicely, but it has very little to do with the rest of the film.

[@martinavila7401]

I honestly wish Saoirse stop doing almost only oscar baity films and did more out there interesting films.

[@therealbwells2024]

Benjamin Clementine is one of my favorite singers and seeing him in a bigger movie role like this is so cool! I'm looking forward to seeing this.

It´s a good film but it is really light. I mean, we all know how the film is going to end the minute the boy jumps out of that train. There are some good moments (and some weird moments too, like... who is that black Nigerian cop that seems like he is straight out of a fairy tale?).

[@raymondmartin6737]

My Mother told me about the Blitz and the Battle of Britain. My parents, not yet married, and my uncle went to London from Europe in 1939 as the war was pending. They were married in 1943, and I was born in 1944. We came to NYC, in 1949, on the Queen Mary, and settled in a suburb of NYC in 1950, and I grew up there. I was in the USAF, after ROTC in 1964-68, and served 1969-74. Today, I am a 100% disabled veteran. 😅

[@patrickkevin1869]

Can’t wait to see it next week along with Maria. Awards season is upon us! 😊

[@realmikewebb]

It’s coming to my local art house cinema in SLC next week. I hope to see on the big screen. I am however on my way to see JUROR #2 at a theater that’s only 20 miles away from me but that theater is the only one playing in my area. I await for a possible review on the horizon.

[@BreakfastAllDay]

Yes, later today!

[@jasonraschen1109]

I don't have Apple+ so I'll try and check it out when it's playing at my local theater. Thank you both for reviewing films like these!

[@BreakfastAllDay]

Please do, thanks Jason!

[@dski8097]

Blitz has got to be one of the worst revisioning of history, right up there with woman king...... It's a load of Horse Sht!!!

[@Glebborama]

Loved this movie. The Dickensian/Les Miz section, while feeling like a bit of an outlier, is bolstered by the presence of the great Kathy Burke, who will always be a legend in my book for her performance as Magda on ABFAB.

[@BreakfastAllDay]

So glad you loved it too!

[@grinchone5137]

I will wait until someone brings out a historically correct movie.

[@JenniSummers-dc4hw]

Hope and glory (1987) is probably the best Urban/domestic interpretation about this era.

[@wolfontheroad2262]

Give me a break.

[@andrewdewit4711]

You’re having us on, representing a boring, relentlessly race-baiting vehicle as insightful historical fiction. Compare far, far better stories of UK crime, discrimination and other realities in the Second World War.

[@Ink364]

The other reviews were quite tepid, and after watching it I can understand why. It was nothing special.

[@yiarkungfu]

I wonder if Hollywood can go a year without a WWII film, aka Oscar bait.

[@BreakfastAllDay]

Three of the four movies we reviewed today have some kind of World War II connection.

[@yiarkungfu]

@ I only caught the two. I know I'm being bitchy but every year that I've been alive, I'm 51, there have been WWII related films glorifying, condemning and adjacent. Anyway I'm just bitching. You two are great as always.

[@actfray]

Have either one of you seen the 2023 film, "The Boy In the Woods"? It's a much better film about the horrors of the Nazi regime's impact on children. It's playing on Kanopy and is a true story about the perseverance of a young boy's fight to survive. I highly recommend it. Thanks for all your reviews!

[@stinkanor]

I've been looking forward to this movie and I hope I have a chance to see it in a theater. I'm currently not sure if it'll be at my local arthouse cinema or my local AMC but I'll go somewhat out of my way for it. If not- I actually like Apple TV plus quite a bit so I'll do my best to recreate the theatrical experience at home.

[@craigbarr2003]

I'll see it when it expands more. I think it's only at the Landmark on Sunset this weekend.

[@myytchanneldinakoha8498]

Strangely underwhelming. Auteurial approach to a standard/traditional story make for an iffy watch. Stagey and episodic. Cringey dialogue and delivery. Can’t believe it’s from the same guy that made 12 Years a Slave.

[@BottleConcreteBlond]

This sounds so good! I'm really looking forward to seeing this!

[@nevetsny1]

There were fewer than 10 people in my screening. It’s a shame this isn’t getting a proper release because I totally agree this is a movie crafted by a director at the peak of his powers. Yeah that firehose scene was something. Riveting is going to be used a lot to describe this movie because it is with a 128 point font R. Also I learned some new things about the Blitz. I’m not English so didn’t hear of accounts from relatives.

[@BreakfastAllDay]

Oh no, that's a bummer! But glad you saw it on the big screen.

[@Advent3546]

The early word gave me some trepidation, but this review gave back my hype for it. Steve McQueen has yet to steer me wrong

[@adamjimenez9003]

I was just able to see this yesterday and loved it, i dont understand, i couldnt understand what thr corny part was, my brother who i saw it by the end said "what a bleak movie". And yes i agree 100% with Alonso people miss a lot of context when seeing films when talking about those "lets rally the troops films" which clearly McQueen is playing towards here.

[@BreakfastAllDay]

Right? Maybe it's more earnest than other Steve McQueen movies, but that's not the same as corny. So glad you saw it.

[@KaleLikesWaffles]

I’m shocked that the reviews are mixed to slightly positive because this film was great. Also why did they sweep a Steve McQueen film under the rug…

[@yeskev]

Coming here to Michigan next week. I'll check it out.

[@jasoncarrick5461]

My interest wasn't much when I watched the trailer, but 2 scores in the nines may get me to watch someday. lol. My favorite Saoirse movie is still Brooklyn.

[@BreakfastAllDay]

She's always good. So reliable and versatile. Have you seen The Outrun yet?

[@jasoncarrick5461]

@@BreakfastAllDay Not yet, I plan to though. I have to be in the right head space for that type of movie.

[@Ink364]

I just watched it last night and found it to be quite underwhelming. Saoirse is an amazing actor but I don’t think she was given enough to do here.

[@angelthman1659]

A mind-boggling review. Blitz is terrible. A beautiful mess, but a mess nonetheless. The script is garbage. It doesn't deal with the blitz very much. The film meanders for about an hour, with episodic moments such as amateur singing on the radio, prowling at the local pub, etc. Then it turns into this ridiculous Oliver Twist story. Saoirse disappears for long chunks of the movie, though is set up as the lead character. And then of course the forced diversity. This movie makes it look like the London of 1940 was mixed. It wasn't. Less than 1% of the population was black at the time. But even as fantasy, this film is boring. Don't steer your audience wrong to serve a name director.

[@missthea5259]

Saoirse is the secondary character. George is the main character. Hence the pantomime Dickensian villains as seen though the eyes of a child. Also there was an influx of Black immigrant war workers, servicemen and sailors during WW1 who settled in London.

[@angelthman1659]

@@missthea5259 Saoirse is set up as the lead character. I don't just mean in the credits, but in the structure of the screenplay. Why do people say Dickensian? It's pretentious. This film rips off one book, not other Dickens work. Again, in 1940, the black population of England was less than 1%. This movie makes it look like it was mixed.

[@missthea5259]

@angelthman1659 Well I guess we're done here then. Enjoy your evening. 🙂👍🏾

[@user-mk6eg2nz6q]

Totally agree with this review! ❤

[@thelousyllama]

Man, this film anaesthetized me

[@tylerblack676]

Contrived, conventional, dull, cliched, lifeless, and loaded with *yawn* race theory piffle. As I was watching it I thought, “All the film reviewers I once respected will all love it because it ticks the right political boxes even though it’s a painfully bland film that is all over the place”, and I promised myself that if they did, I’d cut all ties with them. Well, cheers guys, been watching you since TYT but I think we’re done now. Ciao.

[@commandZee]

9.45 WOW! Can't wait!

[@ivordavis1533]

nov 2 2024. the movie was vjvid and memorable! i was there-growing up in the East End of London and can attest to its authenticity. Strangely i have just written a magazine article pointing out that not only did i as a child live through the nightly blitzkrieg but so did my contemporaries-including the subjects of my newest book-John Paul George and Ringo! we were all kids at the time, experiencing the Luftwaffe and buzz bomb nightly attacks! i was in the British port town capital of London as a kid. they were children in the port town of Liverpool-200 miles away! The McQueen movie vividly resurrects the way we were! Ivor Davis

[@Jazzy65-p7n]

Are you black ?

[@stevecatanio8532]

I want to watch 😂

[@Jazzy65-p7n]

It’s fictional as there were hardly anyone who was black or r brown here in the U.K. 😅

[@jonjuan2020]

It pays to do your research. "Colonial soldiers and sailors of Afro-Caribbean descent served in the United Kingdom during the First World War and some settled in British cities". "World War II marked another period of growth for the Black communities in London, Liverpool and elsewhere in Britain. Many Blacks from the Caribbean and West Africa arrived in small groups as wartime workers, merchant seamen, and servicemen from the army, navy, and air forces" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_British_people

[@frmm123]

What a way to trigger us Giants fans!

[@BreakfastAllDay]

Ha, it was an exciting World Series win.

[@aziragoramo]

Can’t wait

[@sting0072007]

Trump is my great grand-daddies former roomate

[@jchandlersabeast]

It was bad. Sorry

[@nonenone2907]

Another woke movie to rewrite history.

[@Mark-ph5nh]

Must be another woke virus movie or soap opera😂😂😂

[@patpowers9210]

Totally uninterested in the blitz. It's been done to death. Don wanna, not gonna.

[@SoulStylistJukeBox]

The Blitz has been “done to death”? May I have at least FIVE examples.

[@eimhinhawes15]

Apart from a segment in the atonement, I don’t think I have seen a single movie set during the London blitz (that’s not to say they don’t exist). Maybe you mean World War II in general? The way I look at it is, it doesn’t matter how many movies get made about a single moment in history, with a great director, crew and cast, it can be represented from a completely fresh perspective. The frontier era has been done to death, but it can still be used to tell unique, interesting stories.

[@patpowers9210]

@@SoulStylistJukeBox 1) Atonement 2) Hope and Glory 3) Mrs. Henderson Presents 4) The Chamomile Lawn and 5) Murder on the Home Front. And that is considerably more thought than I wish to give this topic.

[@patpowers9210]

@@eimhinhawes15 See my other response.

[@myytchanneldinakoha8498]

@@patpowers9210The End of the Affair.

[@skyeblu1722]

Just watched it…all I can say is WOW! 😢🫢😰. Award worthy on multiple levels!

[@BreakfastAllDay]

It's such an exquisitely made film. Glad you saw it.

[@nonenone2907]

Another woke movie to rewrite history.