| 100 |
New York Post Adam Buckman
This one succeeds at encompassing the entire scope of the Second World War by telling its story from the point of view of the Americans from all walks of life who went abroad to fight it, and the ones who participated in the war effort at home. |
| 100 |
Christian Science Monitor Gloria Goodale
Ken Burns is back with The War, a film that could well be to this Iraq war-weary generation what "Roots" was for its time. That is, television that asks the right questions in the right moment (Can war be good? Is it ever necessary?) and rises to become a cultural landmark for future generations. |
| 100 |
New York Daily News David Hinckley
It's the best thing he's done including "The Civil War." |
| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle Tim Goodman
The War is a remarkable storytelling feat and a visceral television experience, a twinned accomplishment that, combined, does the nearly impossible - it allows the rebirth of an overly familiar story and freshens it in astounding ways. |
| 100 |
San Jose Mercury News Charlie McCollum
It has scope, intimacy, insight, emotional impact and a relentless narrative drive that never flags over its 15 hours. |
| 100 |
USA Today Robert Bianco
There are works of TV art so extraordinary, all you can do is be grateful. With The War, gratitude abounds. |
| 100 |
Detroit Free Press Mike Duffy
Quite simply, Ken Burns has created another indelible television triumph. |
| 100 |
Orlando Sentinel Hal Boedeker
It isn't hype to call it one of the greatest achievements in U.S. television history. |
| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times Doug Elfman
It is not political, pro-war or anti-war. |
| 90 |
Miami Herald Glenn Garvin
Culling from published memoirs, his own interviews and countless thousands of feet of rare footage from combat photographers, he turns The War into something approaching a virtual-reality experience, always striking and often horrifying. |
| 90 |
Baltimore Sun David Zurawik
Think Homer and The Iliad, and you'll have a pretty good sense of the kind of spectacular storytelling ride The War offers across seven evenings on PBS starting tonight. |
| 90 |
Newsday Verne Gay
The War is magnificent and a triumph in every conceivable way. |
| 90 |
Hollywood Reporter Barry Garron
It took longer to produce than the U.S. spent fighting the war, but the result is nearly as glorious. |
| 90 |
TV Guide Matt Roush
The War sets a standard by which future war documentaries will be compared. |
| 80 |
Chicago Tribune Maureen Ryan
The War is a landmark achievement, as comprehensive a visual and personal record as we’re likely get of the experience of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines during World War II. |
| 80 |
Arizona Republic Randy Cordova
The War emerges as a moving, cohesive piece of work. |
| 80 |
Boston Globe Sam Allis
There are inevitable nits to pick--length and dense scheduling for starters--but the production is, indisputably, a major achievement for Burns and his codirector and coproducer, Lynn Novick, who devoted six years to the effort. |
| 80 |
Salon Heather Havrilesky
The War is finally here, and you won't be disappointed. As he did in his award-winning series on the Civil War, Burns showcases his knack for portraying enormous devastation in human terms. |
| 80 |
LA Weekly Robert Abele
Perhaps the best thing about The War--the one that most blunts the greatest-generation flag-waving we've so often been subjected to when it comes to this period--is that when it isn't trying to tug at your heartstrings, it's psychologically grinding. |
| 80 |
Time James Poniewozik
The War is harrowing and, at 15 hours, an endurance contest. But it makes vivid a tale worth retelling. |
| 70 |
Washington Post Rick Atkinson
Burns rejects the "Good War" balderdash and has said that World War II "was in reality the worst war." This sensibility helps sustain a compelling, flawed gem of a documentary, which enriches our emotional comprehension of an event second only to the Civil War in its enduring resonance in the national character. |
| 70 |
Philadelphia Inquirer Jonathan Storm
Enthralling, shocking, revealing, insightful, moving, but sometimes merely numbing, it is certainly worth your time as it spools out in seven, 2- or 21/2-hour increments. |
| 70 |
Wall Street Journal Dorothy Rabinowitz
Mr. Burns's zealous effort to eradicate any hint of a "good war" aura has come at a cost to his series. Thanks to its scope and ambition, and above all to Americans introduced here--those who went to war and survived to speak for themselves and the others whose lives spoke for them--it is nonetheless a profound and moving work. |
| 70 |
The New York Times Alessandra Stanley
The tone and look of Mr. Burns's series, which begins Sunday on PBS, is as elegiac and compelling as any of his previous works, but particularly now, as the conflict in Iraq unravels, this degree of insularity--at such length and detail--is disconcerting. |
| 70 |
Philadelphia Daily News Ellen Gray
The War doesn't so much exclude the many groups that are not explicitly represented as it does include all who served, and yes, all who stayed behind. It's a message diluted by these after-thought interviews. |
| 70 |
Los Angeles Times Robert Lloyd
For all its many flaws, it's an honest, fitfully successful attempt to make history breathe and to tell an oft-told story in a new way. |
| 70 |
Variety Brian Lowry
This has the sense of a definitive work, one that will speak not only to the World War II generation but to those who have lived under the blanket of their sacrifice. |
| 70 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Melanie McFarland
For all its flaws, it is still incredibly powerful and important television, a great work of art, a wonderful contribution to history--in short, obligatory viewing. |
| 70 |
The New Yorker Nancy Franklin
At fifteen hours, The War is too much of a not good enough thing. A spark is missing--a spark that you almost always find in even the most unassuming documentary on the History Channel. |
| 60 |
Slate Beverly Gage
The War, despite its graphic footage and remarkable personal testimony, is a relatively safe film, unlikely to offend anyone's political sensibility. |
| 50 |
Newark Star-Ledger Alan Sepinwall
Some of it is moving, some enlightening, some frustrating, but all of it feels very, very long. |
