One of the reviewers has said this was panned because some people did not like the anti war message. I have not seen a single review that did so.
What this is being panned for by anyone familiar with history is complete disregard for the facts. Secondarily the amount of saccharine and over the top melodrama makes this film almost unbearably cringeworthy.
On the facts for example it makes it seem like one Danish politician, one actress (lol, really?) and a handful of generals were responsible for this ill conceived war. It ignores completely the fact that Denmark's news media at the time, all its journalists, its clergy, and almost its entire population, both empowered and unempowered supported the war. It also ignores the fact that the leftist poltical parties in Denmark were more supportive of the war than the right, making it seem like the war was pushed by conservatives when it was pushed as hard or harder by the left.
It also ignores completely the context of the war in the national independence moments that freed so many Europeans from the totalitarian, murderous and deeply abusive European land empires. "Nationalism" and nationalist wars in the 19th and early 20th century were precisely why Bulgarians, Croatians, Serbians, Ukrainians, Greeks, virtually all of central and Eastern Europe had a chance of not being under the jackboot of the Ottoman, Austria-Hungarian and Russian Empires.
Also the reason why Denmark did not participate in any European wars for the next 80 years (except as a invasion victim that did not really fight back) is attitudes after this war made it a satellite of Germany, not from some idealistic pacifism.
On the facts for example it makes it seem like one Danish politician, one actress (lol, really?) and a handful of generals were responsible for this ill conceived war. It ignores completely the fact that Denmark's news media at the time, all its journalists, its clergy, and almost its entire population, both empowered and unempowered supported the war. It also ignores the fact that the leftist poltical parties in Denmark were more supportive of the war than the right, making it seem like the war was pushed by conservatives when it was pushed as hard or harder by the left.
It also ignores completely the context of the war in the national independence moments that freed so many Europeans from the totalitarian, murderous and deeply abusive European land empires. "Nationalism" and nationalist wars in the 19th and early 20th century were precisely why Bulgarians, Croatians, Serbians, Ukrainians, Greeks, virtually all of central and Eastern Europe had a chance of not being under the jackboot of the Ottoman, Austria-Hungarian and Russian Empires.
Also the reason why Denmark did not participate in any European wars for the next 80 years (except as a invasion victim that did not really fight back) is attitudes after this war made it a satellite of Germany, not from some idealistic pacifism.