Waititi ... finds such strange, sweet humor in his storytelling that the movie somehow maintains its ballast, even when the tone inevitably (and it feels, necessarily) shifts.

A twisted piece of grandly entertaining provocation. ... This is a dark satire that finds a way to make a case for understanding.

It’s like a Wes Anderson movie set during the Third Reich. ... And yet it’s not as if it’s a terrible movie; it’s actually a studiously conventional movie dressed up in the self-congratulatory “daring” of its look!-let’s-prank-the-Nazis cachet.

Though it dabbles with the horror of the Third Reich it never examines their worst atrocities ... And that perhaps, is too careless in today’s world of a rising far right and stealth dictatorships. But if you’re looking for giddy escapism, Bowie tunes and an unapologetic good time with a side order of remembrance for of WW2, then you’ll have as much fun as the cast clearly had making this.

Yes, Waititi’s sugary fantasy unearths an endearing quality in the most unlikely places. But in the process, it buries the awful truth.