Allied

Neither great nor terrible. As usual, the enemies run straight into the fire of the heroes, who are then able to leave the scene without any consequences. Then the film morphed into some sort of a romantic drama with war used only as a backdrop to the story. The situation was saved by the ending. A happy one would have clearly been unfortunate in this case. (09/04/2017)

Knight doesn’t write bad stories and when he pays homage to Hollywood classics like Casablanca, he manages to add an element of modernity. Pitt’s cold fish Max Vatan melting in the arms of Marion Cotillard in action scenes is still an effective killing machine and the spying game is much more convincing than usual. Details, details and more details. Zemeckis has made a strong genre piece with abundant gleaming camera shots and, the occasional feeble special effect here and there doesn’t matter in the slightest. A quality romantic wartime drama about family, love and good people in a difficult situation. Ideal for a date. (30/01/2017)

Brad Pitt is great, Marion Cotillard is excellent, and Robert Zemeckis knows how to film a scene that will be aesthetically intriguing at first glance. He chose an interesting story for his next film, but I just couldn't get into it, and this otherwise strong dramatic romance just didn't quite captivate me. (10/02/2017)

If it weren’t for the botoxed Brad Pitt and several scenes that reeked of Hollywood, where for instance a couple makes love in the midst of a sandstorm in Morroco and Marion Cotillard then gives birth during an air raid of London, I would be literally excited about the movie. I haven’t seen such great war atmosphere for a long time, which actually is no wonder. Robert Zemeckis is a great director and he’s truly great at creating high-quality atmospheres. The ending of the movie was also literally aced, but I guess Angelina Jolie probably wouldn’t share my excitement… (09/03/2017)

Allied is definitely a simplification of history, but in a nice retro-Hollywood guise that makes us turn a blind eye to that fact. It is surprisingly not tacky, dramatic bordering on chilling due to the atmosphere of the period in which the story takes place. It is also perfectly directed with cool professionalism and without the tear-jerking we might expect from Robert Zemeckis, and without any grand love motifs we might expect from Alan Silvestri. Because such a well-written script with such a powerful story doesn't need any of that. The ending totally got me. (07/02/2017)