All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

[March 26, 2023]   I saw the movie, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) as a young kid in a small southern town after being dropped off with my brother.  My mom’s instructions were, “go see a movie while I go grocery shopping.”  The movie was a real shock, and I never forgot it.  There are two remakes, one in 1979 and a recent remake in 2022.  I saw neither and I’m reluctant to watch the 2022 remake after seeing The Critical Drinkers review.

The Critical Drinker, aka Scotsman Will Jordan, is a movie critic that puts Roger Ebert, Gene Siskel, and Rex Reed to shame.  I wrote about Will Jordan several times to show my praise for his reviews (links here and here).  We don’t think alike, and that is why I like him.

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) is the adaptation of a classic anti-war story.  Like most of us, moviemakers are horrible at sequences and remakes, as they inevitably fail miserably.  Hollywood and Disney are great at destroying the value of any movie and losing audience when they rehash and “update” it.

Will Jordan notes that there is a gap in the market when the big moviemakers fail.  Someone is going to step forward to fill it, whether it be South Korea giving us compelling thrillers or India delivering epic action movies, or, in this case, Germany producing a potent, moving, extremely well-crafted war movie while expanding on the source material that made it so successful in the first place.

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) is based on the 1929 novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque after his WWI experiences.  While there have been similar remakes, this one takes full advantage of the benefit of modern cinema technology.

“And holy shit, did they do it justice with this one.  All Quiet on the Western Front is a remarkable movie that pulls absolutely no punches.  It tells the story faithfully and honestly.”

The story begins in the summer of 1917, while WWI has been raging for three years.  As casualties mount, the Germany Army increasingly needed additional manpower.  Insert Paul Bäumer, a German teenager who fakes his age to sign up and fight alongside his friends.  Spirits are high as the boys head off to war, fueled by patriotic speeches and dreams of adventure.

“The fact that they are wearing uniforms stripped from their dead predecessors and hastily patched up is a pretty chilling taste of what is to come.  Naturally, it doesn’t take long for the harsh reality of trench warfare to hit them in the face.  Within minutes of arriving at the front lines, they are surrounded by blood, mud, and the dead.  By the end of the first day, one of them has already been killed by an artillery strike.”

It’s a hard introduction to a hard and brutal war.  Fast forward 18 months, and things are looking bleak for the Germans.

“After four years of attrition and a series of crushing defeats, they’re running out of men to feed into the meat grinder.  Defeat seems inevitable.  They have no choice but to sue for peace.  But as the German delegation heads off to negotiate an armistice with the French, the German high command orders a massive offensive in the hopes of improving their position.  It’s a pointless gesture of defiance, sacrificing thousands of lives on the altar of pride and ego.”

Few conflicts better exemplify the horror and futility of warfare than WWI.  That is why it has been a significant backdrop to anti-war movies and television shows.

Watch the entire review; it’s worth your time.  Thank you, Will.  I’m still not sure I have the courage to watch the movie.  Will Jordan does recommend watching the movie in its original German with subtitles instead of the “crappy” English dubbed version.  And that makes a lot of good sense to me.

“The movie makes absolutely no concessions to the ‘message’ [referring to liberal diversity ideology] or ‘modern audiences’ [who are pitifully immature snowflakes] and delivers the kind of harrowing experience that will stay with you long after the final scene.”

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) gets a well-deserved Critical Drinker recommendation.

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Please read my books:

1. “55 Rules for a Good Life,” on Amazon (link here).
2. “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here).