“Where was the might of the Luftwaffe, and why wasn’t it brought to bear?”
It was.
The sky is vast. A few hundred planes spread out over hundreds of cubic miles (the whole region) and not all flying at once.... well you don’t need to much to show that. There weren’t as many planes involved that early in the war. Most of the real aerial fighting wasn’t near the beach.
“Zero character development,”
“he film does very little to really explain why Dunkirk “
You wanted them to tack on artificial character development and a history lesson? And you don’t like Zimmer? Sorry dude but you now have zero credibility as far as movie critique.
I wasn't looking for a "history lesson", or "artificial" characters. But if you're going to tell a story, it's a good idea to provide some context, and in the case of an historical movie, that would include some of the history relevant to the story. As for characters, you don't have to "invent" a character, or even give much in the way of details about who they are, to make them interesting and/or a character that you find yourself caring about or curious about.
As for the Luftwaffe, a combination of command decisions and delays, coupled with bad weather, were largely responsible for the time that allowed the BEF to get out of Dunkirk. My point is that, apart from a single line about armor, and nothing about what was going on with German command or the Luftwaffe, many people are left to wonder 1) how the BEF ended up encircled in Dunkirk, and 2) why they had so much time (around 11 days in all) to get out of there.
You're entitled to your opinion ("Zimmer is the second coming of Mozart!"), and I am entitled to mine ("Dunkirk" is hardly the greatest WWII movie ever made).