its a battlestar galactica docu

First major critique is the score. I understand it was meant to feel unnerving and unsettling but it is brutal. I felt like i was being tortured into having a heart attack. I don't need to actually feel like im at war to get a good experience, it is monotonous and relentless. You get huge 3 minute+ segments of nothing but a droning alarm sound blasted in your ears. I was actually considering leaving due to it, and if the 3rd act didn't seriously pick up the quality and keep me invested, I may well have done so.

The intentional jumping of time plot seems to be there purely to be a cool quirk. Not sure it adds anything but unnecessary confusion. Since you are telling a story of survival for the men on the beach, really would have liked to see the film play out in a much more linear format. Actually staying on the beach for the first 50 minutes so you can appreciate the length of their struggle, before introducing the boats, then bring in Tom Hardy with 30 minutes to go. You suddenly feel emotion for the characters due to spending time with them and learning how hard it is, and I feel Cilian Murphy's character being fleshed out a bit before we see him on the boat later on would add a lot. Did anyone care about his character at all?

Agree a lot with what Clovis said about how the film is the same 3 scenes on repeat. Every Tom hardy scene is the same, the cuts to the boat where we can have another discussion about ptsd played out quickly, and each beach scene being, we escaped, oh no actually we didn't got repetitive. 'The land' was clear best part of the story and I liked it a lot, but the scenes really picked up when the characters started talking to each other in the boat on the beach. Maybe would have been nice to use words to add tension in other scenes too?

Last critique is the terrible Tom Hardy end bit. How long to we have to watch him glide for? and then the extended omg will he wont he of the landing gear. Why has such a cheesy thing been put in out of the blue? Plus it ultimately doesn't matter if his gear comes out or not, because noone cares about his character, and he is ****ed whether he lands or not based on where he is landing.

Overall the film looks beautiful and is a great piece of film making. Its just the sound is awful and the film tries to do cool stuff just to be quirky to its detriment. Ultimately though, I think it's just boring. Shame because the story is one I didn't even know of, and seems like a great story. Maybe if the film had been handed to someone to just let the story do the work instead of trying to jazz it up, it would have worked better.

Pros:
-Theron was great, she was very believable in her role.
-A lot of exciting action including one of the best extended action sequences I've seen in awhile. Really impressive all around 10 minutes or so.
-Storyline kept your attention throughout. It was deceptive but didn't feel contrived first time through.

-Aside from Theron, you left the theater really feeling like you didn't know the characters at all. This can be fine, but in a movie with twists and turns like this, I think it's important to at least have a feel for why people act the way they do. That wasn't the case here.
-I don't know for sure about this, but I think it may have been too clever for its own good. I'll have to rewatch, but I'm not sure the final twist will hold up watching the movie knowing her true motive the entire time.