Blitz often feels like a pitched battle between the conventions of big-canvas war recreation and an attempt to evoke the stranger, less obviously narrative-driven chaos that happens when the battlefield descends on a major urban center from the sky.

Blitz knows what it's doing and why, but its compromises may be more self-deceiving than subversive. Cloaking himself more heavily than ever in populist hand-me-downs, McQueen gets swallowed up by his own brilliant disguise.

McQueen, whose unflinching "12 Years a Slave" won Best Picture in 2013, softens his touch a bit here. But his eye is as sharp as ever, and he identifies beauty even in the darkest of spaces...

It’s paint-by-numbers petty behavior punctuated with noble valor: diverting but never really enthralling.