I have been waiting for All Quiet on the Western Front since I first saw it advertised over a month ago. The previews were great, and I had high expectations for the movie.

A little background on me, I read the book just over a year ago and absolutely loved it. It was one of the best pictures of war that I’ve ever read. I even use parts of it in class. There are a few pieces of the book that describe the horrors of war. And these give my students a glimpse inside trench warfare that is more descriptive than anything I can tell them.

And this movie lives up to the hype. It is fantastic, with one caveat. It does not follow the book.

Of course Hollywood take liberties with the story, but they did a fantastic job. If you are looking for a page by page blow of the story from the book, you will not find it here. That doesn’t mean the movie should be viewed in a negative light.

This movie does an amazing job at showing the horrors of war, and to me World War I was one of the most horrific wars of all-time. The terrors of the shelling, trench life, lack of food, and so much more are shown in this film in a fantastic way. If you go into this film with a desire to see how the war was fought, then you will not be disappointed. If you go into it looking for scenes from the book, you will be disappointed.

This is not the place to look for historical inaccuracies. My goal is not to shred movies, unless it is woefully wrong. But what I am here to look at how the movie is presented and does it do history justice in the long run. I think this movie does simply by showing how the war was fought, especially in the trenches.

The movie has gory scenes that might not be suitable for younger audiences, so take that into consideration. But that also makes it a more realistic war movie.

Overall this is a fantastic movie. Gaining popularity with Hollywood is World War I, which excites me because I feel it is overlooked. The Second World War generally gets all the attention in Hollywood, and rightfully so. After the success of 1917 it is nice to see Hollywood making movies with some of the lesser understood wars.

You can check out All Quiet on the Western Front on Netflix.