All Quiet on the Western Front (2022 edition) is one of the best anti war movies based on one of the best anti war books. It’s a grueling slog in the way World War I warfare was a grueling slog. Trenches full of mu, blood, and death… pointless grisly charges on machine gun positions, the threat of gas attacks, and these new mechanical terrors called tanks. This is a pretty fantastic and very horrific film.

The film doesn’t exclusively wallow in the mud for its full runtime. It takes time out to show the boredom of the soldiers in between battles, their struggle to find food, their comradery, and their hopes, dreams, and fears. The main character is mostly a blank slate… hell, we barely get to know any of these characters before they are ground into the mud. But I think that’s the point.

I can’t recall the beat-by-beat components of the book so I can’t say with confidence how much this wanders from it. It does include the addition of politicians and officers debating an armistice which is intercut with the day-to-day battles on the front lines. The original story (as memory serves) is exclusively the life of an average soldier. This addition adds hope and despair in equal measures. It’s also, if you know the end of this story in advance, a pointless cruelty for the viewer.

Which brings me to that ending. The movie goes for an alternate finale from the book and I’m a little on the fence about it. While both are a fine indictment on the folly and uncaring cruelty of war, I think this movie misses the point a little. The film version works as an inevitable and unfair down-to-the-wire folly… while the books dismissive cruelty is less cinematic and far more casually indifferent. The indifference is, I think, at the heart of the story (not to mention the point of the title).

I rather loved this horrible little anti war film. But sadly I don’t think a war film has ever really stopped the inevitability of war. But maybe just existing in our minds can prevent a generation from going into the next war with a song on their lips (as portrayed in book and film). This is a harsh, cruel film that should be watched as a reminder that it’s all fun and games until you come back home in a body bag.

Score: 95