Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Walter Sloane Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Gatorman9 The usual problem with war movies (and television as well) that are supposed to be about air combat is that the action sequences you really tuned in to see routinely take a back seat a preponderance of typically hokey ground-based melodrama. If that kind of thing disappoints you, then THIS is the movie you want to watch.The makers of this film "got it", turning the usual paradigm around 180 degrees. In THE BATTLE OF Britain, the action comes FIRST, literally from the opening frame, and man, is there ever action. No one has ever come even remotely close to making a movie so packed with air combat action, and best of all, has done it so well. For viewers used to old 1940's vintage airwar movies with their usual panoply of obvious miniature models, soundstage rear-projection shots, and clearly artificial early special effects, you are in for a real treat. Never, not even in TORA, TORA, TORA (much less the comparatively sugar-coated MEMPHIS BELL), have such a collection of vintage aircraft been brought together to reenact aerial combat for video. Nothing else has really ever even come close. There is no CGI here, and whatever miniatures or animation were necessary in some spots the fact is that the innumerable aerial combat sequences are completely dominated by actual period aircraft in flight -- dozens and dozens of period aircraft in actual dogfights and other combat flight maneuvers. One gets the impression that half the film's budget could have spent on aviation fuel alone. And with that material to work with, neither do the cinematographers or the sound effects people or even the music department disappoint (and for my money, the British theme is the best piece of music ever composed to glorify flying). Not only is the movie jam-packed from end to end with essentially authentic aircraft in flight, but the photography makes the most out of it, with countless exciting, full-color shots of carefully choreographed combat sequences. Moreover, if you are already familiar with the storyline -- i.e., if you know your history of the early years of World War II -- then the narration is fairly brilliant in its rapid-paced, economical, nuanced approach to hitting all the high points of the war generally at that time and the Battle of Britain in particular. In that sense, I would give very high marks to the screenplay. Unfortunately, however, if you DON'T know your history of these events, no one but the quickest thinkers are likely to catch on to so much of what's going on here, and if the movie has a significant failing, that is it. The plot, such as it is, can be quite a muddle to the uninitiated. And while some reviewers were unimpressed with the ground-side melodrama here, I think that is at most a secondary complaint, and I personally did not find that oppressive in the least, but rather, appropriate to the subject matter and sufficiently subdued that it never threatens to dominate the movie. To the contrary, at least it gives the non-history buff something readily understandable and it also includes some humorous anecdotes as well. One thing I used to think about this movie is that nothing like this would ever be made again, and yet, here recently (as of January 2016) it has come out that some one is putting together a remake. God knows what it might look like. The original features such a great cast of English heroic actors (Sir Lawrence Olivier, Robert Shaw, Trevor Howard, Michael Caine, Kenneth More, etc., etc.) that it is hard to see how anyone can equal much less top that today, and one anticipates that whatever CGI they decide to use won't equal using real airplanes, either. Well, at least we still have a high-quality DVD of this. lol.

GusF Designed to commemorate Britain's finest hour, the film is badly let down by its poorly paced, badly written script. It has a great cast including Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer, Michael Caine, Robert Shaw, Trevor Howard, Edward Fox, Susannah York, Michael Redgrave and Curd Jürgens but most of them either have too little screen time or subpar material so their talents are not used effectively. Bond veteran Guy Hamilton's direction is quite pedestrian. The flying scenes are spectacular but a great looking film with a bad script isn't worth much. Never in the field of human cinema has such a good cast been assembled for such a boring film.The few historical characters, particularly Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, are fairly well treated but the fictional ones are paper thin and poorly characterised. The Harveys' marital problems were given far too much attention. The subplot was uninteresting, melodramatic, clichéd, distracting and predictable. Speaking of historical characters, the real Dowding, who died only a few months after the film was released, visited the set during filming. Furthermore, Jürgens' character Baron von Richter is a thinly veiled version of Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi Foreign Minister and former Ambassador to the UK who was convicted of war crimes and executed in 1946. I fail to see why they could not have simply used von Ribbentrop as a character, particularly since it was specifically mentioned that von Richter spent several years in Britain. Several people who were directly involved in the battle such as the RAF flying ace Robert Stanford Tuck and his Luftwaffe counterpart (and postwar close friend) Adolf Galland acted as consultants but are not depicted as characters in the film, at least not directly. I watched the fascinating episode of "The World at War" (narrated by Olivier, incidentally) dealing with the battle a few days ago. Galland discusses it from the German perspective at some length and claimed that, even in 1940, he did not believe that Germany could have won the battle (without the support of the army and navy) in spite of the Luftwaffe's superior numbers in large part because they had only thirty minutes of fuel for each flight. He also said that he did not think that Operation Sea Lion had a serious chance of success, a view now shared by many historians.Overall, this is a very forgettable film about a hugely significant chapter in British and world history which should never be forgotten. I can't fault the film's intentions, only its execution. The film's heart was most assuredly in the right place but the material deserved a considerably better treatment. The only reason that it inspired any emotional reaction at all is that it was based on a real event with a high casualty rate. Bitterly disappointing.

buiger I was very lenient in rating this movie for two reasons: - I am a sucker for these types of movies - I thought that for a movie made in 1969 with very good special f/x for the time, some of the naiveté could be forgiven Otherwise I agree with Ebert. It is not a wonder that notwithstanding that this was am A-grade mega production, it did not receive even one award or even nomination worthy of mention.This movie is far too slow, especially the battle scenes. The repeat themselves almost endlessly and seem to be the 'raison d'etre' of the movie. What is missing is characterization, introspection, real emotions. We need to feel with the protagonists, see and comprehend their fear, be apart of it. In this film pilots live and die, and somehow we couldn't care less, it doesn't bring up any emotions in us. Historically, the movie is correct, but there again it lacks in detail, more 'behind the scenes' information. What they feed us is only the basic information you learn in 4th grade. Definitely not enough. All in all, average. What a pity, considering the star saturated cast and all the money spent.

AaronCapenBanner Michael Caine heads an all-star cast including Trevor Howard, Christopher Plummer, Harry Andrews, and Sir Laurence Oliver as this Guy Hamilton directed film attempts to recreate the historical account of how the Royal Air Force(RAF) valiantly defended Britain from the Nazi air assault of 1940, which cost the lives of many fine airmen, as well as a huge number of civilian deaths along with Airplane and property destruction that cost England dearly, though which ultimately turned the tide against Hitler's Germany.Though the aerial dogfights between the RAF and Luftwaffe are impressively recreated, this film is otherwise disappointing, as it never creates an involving story with its characters, or any kind of compelling dramatic story, which is strange, since the potential was there. A good documentary on the subject may be more interesting and informative than this, unfortunately.