I'll tell you why so serious

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The Bismarck with a jammed rudder circling back towards Valhalla. Classic stiff upper lip Brits versus arrogant soon to be drowned Prussians. The movie world seemed so much simpler back than...and smarter. Good movie to watch late at night with a few beers reminiscing about how todays rudderless movie world is heading toward its own Dumb & Dumber Valhalla.This classic movie was made in-between now long forgotten Cowboy movies. This war movie didn't go full cartoonish retard . Sink the Bismarck probably was the most historically correct out of the common WW2 blood feasts that had the evil Nazi Storm Troopers dropping like flies into the late 1970's until Quentin Tarantino resurrected that dumb genre.You almost feel sorry for the doomed Germans out-numbered, out-gunned and circling aimlessly in the North Atlantic . With no help over the horizon just waiting for the British Battleships to catch them in a circle of 12" shells.

SINK THE BISMARCK – 1960 Another well made war film from that great 1950 to 1966 era, when more than a few excellent war time films were knocked out. This one tells the tale of the German battleship, Bismarck. Bismarck was the first battleship built by Germany since the First World War. Because of several ocean raids made earlier in the war by GRAF SPEE, SCHARHORST and GNEISENAU. The British were worried that Bismarck could wreak havoc of the Atlantic convoys.When Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen, made their break to reach the Atlantic, the Royal Navy sent every ship they could to hunt them down. First honours went to the German Navy, when they sank the star of the R.N. the Hood, and heavily damaged the Prince of Wales.Later on, Bismarck's luck ran out when a lucky hit with a torpedo dropped by a Swordfish aircraft, damaged her steering gear. Unable to escape the rest of the ships in pursuit, she went to the bottom under a hail of shells and torpedoes. Prinz Eugen escaped and made it to German held France.The film itself is told from the British headquarters managing the pursuit. Kenneth More plays the officer in charge. He is supported by a slew of British character actors like, Geoffery Keen, Laurence Naismith, Michael Horden and Maurice Denham. Pretty Dana Wynter supplies the female content.Shot is black and white, the film features some excellent model work, and top notch battle scenes. The director, Lewis Gilbert keeps this one moving at a steady pace with nary a slow moment on screen.Even 50 plus years after being made, this one stands up very well and is worth a look.

I saw this movie when it came out. I was nine years old living in a tiny Idaho town, and it was great stuff. In different ways, it's still great stuff, despite the melodramatic excesses (Lutjens wasn't a Nazi idiot, and that completely over-the-top scene with the agent tapping out a few more words after the Germans shoot him.) Anything with Kenneth More is worth watching more than once.So, why is the sinking of the Bismarck such a big deal for the Brits? Well, as Johnny Horton's song reminds you at the start, it was May of 1941, and Britain was out of allies. In the movie itself it mentions the loss of Maleme in Crete--a disaster on top of two more disasters, the recent evacuation of the Greek mainland, and Rommel's defeat of the British army remaining in North Africa. The Royal Navy took large losses covering the evacuation from Crete. In other worlds, any betting man in the USA would put his money on Germany whipping the Brits. But these disasters were happening far away and were hard to understand; the Bismarck chase filled American front pages at a very critical moment. It was Revenge at Sea (which, incidentally, is the title of a book about a similar chase-down in World War I.) Now that's the kind of stuff that sells newspapers.

"Sink the Bismarck" (1960) tells the story of the British attempts to destroy the pride of the German fleet, the Bismarck, which enjoyed an enviable career at first, but its success was short-lived. The stars are Kenneth More, Dana Wynter, Karel Stepanek, and Laurence Naismith.I'm no WW II expert as others on this board are, so I won't go into historical facts as presented by this film, except to say that the story was manipulated to present the good guy-bad guy scenario often seen in war films. With films like "Das Boot," we are allowed to see the Germans as human beings, with young men fighting just as our young men did, to defend their country. Here, we have a dedicated Nazi, Admiral Lutjens (Stepanek) as the commander of the Bismarck who wants victory at all costs and seemingly has little concern for his men. At one point, an officer makes a suggestion, which the commander waves off with "I don't care about the sea," and the reply is, "I was thinking of the men." In another scene, he refers to his men as "good Nazis" or some-such phrase. In truth, Admiral Lutjens wasn't a Nazi at all, he was a military man who protected Jews under his command and whose family held anti-Nazi feelings. Secondly, very few soldiers were Nazis. When the British soldiers are told their dangerous orders, the camera gives us close-ups of some of their faces - young men, facing death; we aren't shown anything like this on the Bismarck.This sounds like negative criticism; it really isn't. This is the way war films were presented, and I don't expect a war-torn country to have sympathy for the Germans; it's just that today there is a different sensibility, not about the Nazis and officers, certainly, but about the normal German people.This is a very exciting film with some wonderful acting, particularly by Kenneth More, an officer who tries to stay detached from his emotions and demands formality and discipline from his staff. In truth, he is very different from the image he projects. More shows us a fully fleshed-out character. Lovely Dana Wynter plays his efficient WREN assistant. Her working relationship with More grows throughout the film very convincingly. Stepanek is excellent as Admiral Lutjens, who believes in the complete superiority of his ship. The More character correctly uses the man's pride against him.The effects are incredible, and there looks to be some newsreel footage - grainy footage, anyway - interspersed. Edward R. Murrow broadcasts are included to give the film an air of authenticity. I probably would have preferred the Germans to speak German with subtitles for more reality; a congratulatory note from Hitler written in English is kind of ridiculous.Despite this, "Sink the Bismarck" is well worth seeing, as is just about anything with the marvelous Kenneth More. It's a very stirring movie.