I just got back from seeing Fury.
I was glad to see it. There are parts I liked and parts I didn't think were done so well, but I'm glad that they made it, and I hope that it does well. If movies like this don't make money, the odds of really great war movies being made goes down. I think that it was a labor of love. For me, it is not as good as great war movies (like 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, 12 O'clock High, A Bridge Too Far, Das Boot, Midway, Saving Private Ryan) but a lot better than bad war movies (like Pearl Harbor and U-571).
Things I liked: the tanks (of course, especially the Tiger), that they made it clear to the audience how vulnerable Shermans were, that they had some scenes out of tank-warfare stories I've read, that they put in a fight with several Shermans vs. a Tiger where the Tiger killed all but one, and the one only succeeded by getting around the Tiger to shoot it other than in the front and from close range.
Things I didn't like: the overly creepy characters, the cliché aspects of plot and characterization, too many instances of Shermans taking a hit and not catching fire, that tanks were missing too many shots in a row at close range, that the Tiger battle was not pulled off as well as it could have been, that burning tanks didn't light off violently enough, the whole one tank vs. 200-300 guys battle.
The things I liked are where they did research and tried at least to put them in. The things I didn't like were Hollywoodisms, which I expect in most movies. Only a rare handful of movies avoid getting polluted by Hollywoodisms, so I am at least a little tolerant there.
