Underwhleming movie (spoilers)

After watching it, I kind of understand why it did not do well, I don't think it was a very good movie overall.

First of all, the leader of the team, Gus March-Phillips, played by Henry Cavill, we were told he was in prison, and men would follow him anywhere, that was it. We don't know what he was in prison for, or what he did in the past, even till the end, and we don't know why "men would follow him anywhere", there was no demonstration of his leadership qualities, we don't know why his crew followed his orders, they just do. It is like, OK, that is the set up, you don't need to understand why, just accept it.

And they did not say anything to motivate him, nor did they say anything threatening about what would happen if he deserted the mission and run. Everyone just trusted each other implicitly.

The second thing I don't like was the ship they targeted became "unsinkable", because it was upgraded. Of course I would understand that they did not bring enough explosives, even they just blew up a German destroyer, but it was not about that. The other people were saying the ship was unsinkable were not aware any of this, calling a cargo ship of that size "unsinkable" is kind of ridiculous. That is the second time they say, OK, you just have to accept this for the plot to work.

Also the war between Britain and Germany already began, there were air raids on London, their mission was illegal as I understand only because it was going to be carried out in Spanish territory, which was neutral at the time, why would a British destroyer try to intercept and arrest them before?

MI6 works for foreign office, not department of defence, so why was the admiral giving direct orders to M and his operatives?

Why would they keep emphasizing if the British captured them they would be in prison? What they do was not illegal, not until they reached Spanish territory, and the British can't arrest them there. Even they were arrested later they would be pardoned by the PM like in the end, so that was just unconvincing.

Overall I could not be sure whether they were trying to be serious. It is like they could not decide which way to go.

It was based on real history, and not so over the top like James Bond movies, but it was clearly not serious enough to be a real ww2 movie, and we are never worried about our heroes.

Germany soldiers were just like storm troopers in star wars, the elite soldiers anyone with a gun can kill a dozen. It was kind of like if we put our heroes in Berlin, the war would have been over in a week.