Highly Overrated But Still Good

Film Perfection

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This is a History Channel TV series pulling together the colored footage made in WWII and personal accounts of the war from some Americans. It is ten hour-long TV episodes. Some of the rare footages have never been shown on TV. This is a very traditional telling of the war. The overview is nothing new or surprising. The personal accounts give some harrowing first person witness to the battles. It's also a source of some rather slow sections of non-combat recollections. The Gary Sinise narration is functional but I would have liked an older voice with more gravitas. The combat footage can be quite bloody and gruesome. The color film makes it shockingly new since most WWII footage has always been black and white. It's bringing the old war into a new light.

I went into this expecting to see WWII but all I got was propaganda in the form of a boring dramatized presentation. Only covers the American aspect of WWII and completely ignores anything before Pearl Harbor and anything after which does not have American involvement.There's some unseen footage but nothing worth paying for. They even narrated over the voices of the interviewed veterans using celebrity voices. The video quality is good considering the source material. Other than that, there's not much to say in terms of compliments.If you're looking for a complete documentary that covers all aspects of the war, then 'The World at War' is by far the best and it was produced in '73. I also recommend 'WWII in Color' which is a simplified version but does contain information not documented in 'World at War'.

My expectations were sky high when I hit the Buy-button and sat waiting for this BluRay 2 disc-set to arrive.I expected rolls of color footage transferred to BluRay so I could sit in my den, going time traveling for hours. But no. Instead I got small second sized fragments of footage here and there, drowned in dramatic music and a male drama voice telling the stories.I agree with one of the other reviewers, that this is a MTV-like presentation. Not worth a penny, unless you won't miss a second of color footage from World War 2.The bonus material tells a story of a 2 year hunt for footage and how they transferred the old color films into 4K resolution digital video. All their efforts are not present on this 2 disc BluRay. I repeat, not present.I'm giving this presentation a 2 out of 10 vote. One for the glimps of color footage and one for being in almost FullHD, 1080i.Honestly, I'm deeply disappointed. I waisted my money. There it is. I said it.

I guess to start with a positive, the color footage is quite interesting and fun to see...but I'd really like to see it for more than 1-1.5 sec's at a time. I noticed this the most while watching the documentary with some music on instead of the narrative - unfortunately this product is yet another victim of the "MTV" style of rapid-fire editing. If you want a good WWII documentary that might suck you in a bit, try the WORLD AT WAR, produced in 1973. It's in Black and White (so what), and is much more satisfying and includes a lot more detail into campaigns that happened outside of direct American influence. My three stars are a reflection of my disappointment with the documentary and to compensate for the almost ridiculous 9.7 stars (at the time of writing).