As a Great War Living History reenactor I was very interested to see this movie.
There was a very long lead up to the major combat at the end - to follow the "Private Ryan" comparison, you start and end with some intense combat footage, and a fairly slow-moving story for the rest of the time. However, the depiction of combat was first rate, showing the brutality of hand to hand fighting in the trenches (also fairly accurately depicted as strings of mud filled shell craters) Not all a saccharin-sweet romance, and certainly not the worst such movie I have ever seen; but it would be nice to see a story of the standard of "All Quiet On the Western Front" with the benefit of modern special effects that can allow the combat depictions to be more realistic.
Overall there seemed be some inaccuracies in the uniforms and equipment, although little that anyone not heavily into the history of such matters would notice or care about. The main character wears what appear to be lace up gaiters as worn by the American troops instead of the puttees universal among British Empire enlisted ranks; although such local individual adaptations did occur, particularly when such items could be "acquired" from other troops (the Australians were noted for this, particularly after Hamel), at the time in which this story is set it is unlikely that a Canadian soldier could have been in contact with AEF troops to obtain such items. The waist belt buckles appear to be more like the style used in 1937 pattern web equipment, as worn throughout World War 2, instead pull through style buckle correct for Great War Bristish style belts. However, one of the most obvious omissions is the lack of respirators. No front line soldier by that stage of the war would have been without a gas mask.
There was a very long lead up to the major combat at the end - to follow the "Private Ryan" comparison, you start and end with some intense combat footage, and a fairly slow-moving story for the rest of the time. However, the depiction of combat was first rate, showing the brutality of hand to hand fighting in the trenches (also fairly accurately depicted as strings of mud filled shell craters) Not all a saccharin-sweet romance, and certainly not the worst such movie I have ever seen; but it would be nice to see a story of the standard of "All Quiet On the Western Front" with the benefit of modern special effects that can allow the combat depictions to be more realistic.
Overall there seemed be some inaccuracies in the uniforms and equipment, although little that anyone not heavily into the history of such matters would notice or care about. The main character wears what appear to be lace up gaiters as worn by the American troops instead of the puttees universal among British Empire enlisted ranks; although such local individual adaptations did occur, particularly when such items could be "acquired" from other troops (the Australians were noted for this, particularly after Hamel), at the time in which this story is set it is unlikely that a Canadian soldier could have been in contact with AEF troops to obtain such items. The waist belt buckles appear to be more like the style used in 1937 pattern web equipment, as worn throughout World War 2, instead pull through style buckle correct for Great War Bristish style belts. However, one of the most obvious omissions is the lack of respirators. No front line soldier by that stage of the war would have been without a gas mask.