To keep this short and sweet:
Felt like it was directed by 5 different people.
Incoherency in character actions and lack of consistency.
Plot was so spoon fed as to be for primary school students.
SUPER cliche generic storylines and arcs.
In no way did we get the sense of how terrifying a true Danger Close call of artillery dropped so close you could light your cigarette off, is.
Small but distracting historical inaccuracies.
Can clearly see where money was saved by not reshooting scenes / explosions that didn't quite come off correctly.
Travis Fimmel is NOT the main character as portrayed elsewhere. They tried to rely so heavily on him being the Hollywood level star, and I've never seen an actor work so hard to try and deliver such bad material - with almost no (or very bipolar) direction.
One second he's portrayed almost as a bumbling fool, the next as a hardened cold killer, the next as an emotional (but still wooden) commander, then as an unwilling partial commander, then portraying the bromance with his men commander, then finally, as a heroic commander. It makes no sense and was such a huge disappointment and wasted opportunity.
The best part of the film were standout performances from the cast.
A fitting tribute to the heroes who served. But a massively wasted opportunity to excel Australian cinema past the flop that was Kokoda.
This is what you'd get if you had a low budget Hacksaw Ridge, WITHOUT Mel Gibson.
Without flawless and genius direction, characters sort of wander aimlessly and just happen to end up at whatever predetermined point has been set.