Cold and lacking any real emotional core or form. Another war film that barely invests time in getting to know any of its characters (even its lead — do we ever actually get a sense of who Paul is as a person?) in favor of harrowing and well-crafted combat sequences, ultimately leaving itself with little to actually say about war besides the most surface-level observation on its horrors — nothing we haven’t seen in countless war films before. Which, considering the depth of Remarque’s novel, is a major disservice to the source material.