All Quiet On The Western Front 2022- spoiler free review.

All Quiet On The Western Front has been highly anticipated. It dropped on Netflix on the 28th of October and has been released in some selected cinemas. I would highly recommend you looking to see if one of those cinemas is near you. This would take advantage of the impressive cinematography and audio quality through the film. It was only a few weeks ago that I was completing the ABF Soldiers Charity 100k walk along The Western Front of WW1. Whilst I was training for that walk, I spent many of those walks listening to the audio book All Quiet On The Western Front. Of course, it was the perfect story for me to hear before heading to the old frontline of The Western Front. The book is incredible. It is harrowing, insightful and an incredibly detailed account of life on the frontline for soldiers during that war. Director Edward Berger did a fantastic job and there were certainly many more stories and conversations he and his team could have taken from the book, but what they took was enough. Considering the run time is 2 hours, 28 mins. Despite the length, it didn’t feel long. The story follows the perspective of a young naïve, German soldier who fakes his father’s signature volunteer for the frontline with his young friends. Their high spirits quickly fade as they are cast into war. But what this film does very well is to demonstrate to you aspects of war unseen. The opening to this film is intriguing but sinister. We see the process in which they stripped fallen soldiers of their uniform and we follow it through a process. Taken from the bodies, piled into bags, transported, cleaned, and patched up. Then, handed back to unknowing young recruits. It surprised me to see this, but thought it was a genius touch. From the time we see our MC, Paul Baumer get to the frontline, he connects with an older soldier named Stanislaus Katczinsky, or Kat for short. I remember in the book that this was a brilliant character. Ernest Borgnine played the role as Kat and I feel he was a perfect casting for him. We see Paul grow throughout, as a soldier, and we see his youth fade, just as many before him fortunate enough to avoid one of the billions of bullets fired or hit by one of the millions of tonnes of artillery fired monthly. This film is graphic, harrowing and beautifully portrayed. If you can’t make it to a cinema to see this, I would suggest watching on a projector with a good sound system. It deserves it. I won’t say any more. I don’t want to spoil the story for you, but that should be enough. If you enjoy this film and you have not read the book, or listened to the audiobook, I highly recommend doing so after. There is so much more to some of what we see and you get the personal touch of the thoughts. Be sure to watch this the 2022 Netflix version as there is already are previous adaptations from 1930 onwards.

I give this film 8.5/10

https://youtu.be/qFqgmaO15x4