Fresh and Exciting

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Where to begin, where to begin...OK, let's start at the start. I guess the producers thought it would be a cute effect to give the German protagonist an English accent, so that we could see the similarities. However, rather than being cute it's confusing. Probably deliberately so, but as a plot device it falls flat. Once in miraculously-always-clean uniform, the distinction is made.Next. Our protagonists on both sides volunteer in 1914, and are rapidly in the front line. This could be correct for a German Kriegsfreiwilliger, but was highly likely not to be the case for a British 1914 volunteer - the first units raised in 1914 didn't see action until 1915, and many not until the Somme.There's so much that's wrong about it, I'll just list a few of the many, many massive clangers:Trenches apparently untouched by 7 days of bombardment.Soldiers who, we are told, haven't been able to eat or drink for 7 days somehow manage to find enough water to shave.Soldiers in the line practically all the time.A British front-line dugout that was roomy, well-lit, contained bunkbeds, with soldiers sleeping on mattresses under blankets, in their underwear, right before a big battle.Everyone dying at the Somme aside from out two protagonists, who are then free to wander around the battlefield.A West Indies Regiment corporal commanding British privates (err, nope, not in WW1, really, that could never have happened) for a prisoner escort through a miraculously untouched British-looking pine forest just behind the lines. Apparently the German lines were just beyond the untouched wood. If you only know one thing about WW1, it's that there were parallel lines of trenches from the North Sea to the Swiss border, so the idea that the German trenches were just beyond a wood IN THE BRITISH REAR is totally, ridiculously laughable.

Made as a co production with the BBC and Polish TV this was shown during the remembrance of the 100th anniversary of 'the war to end all wars'. The synopsis is that this is the full five years of that terrible and pointless conflict seen through the eyes of two ordinary soldiers. One is English – called Tommy (predictable I know but still a great name) the other Michael is German. It is through their 'ordinary' experiences that we are taken on a tour of World War I. Now we do have a number of issues dealt with, the lying about your age to be allowed to walk slowly towards slaughter for King and country is covered. The gas attacks, the not wanting to be a coward (no mention of the nasty white feathers though), the food shortages, lice, playing footie in no man's land and the 'affairs of the heart'. The uniforms are good though as are the guns, and the musical score is excellent.Now the bad bits, first off everyone speaks English with a Home Counties accent – even the Germans. The only attempt at an accent is from the Polish nurse. So it is a good job they have good uniforms or you forget which side is which. There are six half hour episodes and on the DVD they have left in all the previews of the next episode and then when it finally starts you have a montage of what previously happened. This could and should have been edited out. Then the coincidence and plot contrivances and the sheer unbelievability of some of the antics are just a bit insulting on the intelligence. There is also an amazing lack of blood and gore which was done for a certain audience I know, but war should never be sanitised it is the first step to making it acceptable and as such is the lowest form of propaganda. Then the bits that have been 'borrowed' from 'All Quiet on the Western Front' and even the ending shot is a straight lift from the excellent master piece of French cinema 'Wooden Crosses'. If you are going to tackle such a subject matter then do it realistically and do it justice, this was a mish mash of seen before, could have done better and over sentimentality in lieu of having anything really valid or original to say.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?Yes, some of the button counters will be happy that they can comment on the accuracy of uniforms, sets etc. but remember this emotional drama is actually about the two young men and their progression from happy-go- lucky kids to two nameless cogs in the meat grinder that was the "Great War". As this was a pre-watershed series, the producers were careful to provide a thoughtful insight into the heartbreak that took the youth of our grandparents generation without providing OTT material for the "Call Of Duty" generation.It was good to see that both sides were treated to the same level of sympathy, something echoed some years ago by my grandfather, who said when I asked him if he hated the Germans, said "they were just lads like us, doing the job they were supposed to do." The final episode had me in tears as I saw what could have been my own sons drawn into what turned out to be a pointless fight to the death. The final scene spoke volumes as a microcosm of the entire war for the PBI that fought it. Answering the call of duty whilst disregarding personal safety to save the life of a mate, in spite of being just seconds away from the armistice and paying the ultimate price. This should be compulsory viewing in schools so that we never make the same mistakes again. The BBC is to be congratulated for keeping the excessive swearing out of this. This generation were largely church-going kids who hadn't learned to eff and blind by the time they started school. There was some bad language, of course, but read the poems of Wilfred Owen to hear what soldiers actually cursed as they died. The Passing Bells should be watched in schools to show the selflessness of a generation that very quickly had the jingoism knocked out of them.

"Passing Bells" is The Great War seen as a fifth form project. It's undoubtedly a good thing to try to engage children's interest in the Conflict that destroyed the flower of Europe's youth and changed the map of that benighted continent for ever,but at least have the courage to present it as something other than a pastel - shaded commercial for a TV special about the below - stairs staff of Downton Abbey. If you're going to tell young people about the war do them the courtesy of treating them as intelligent beings. "War is hell" isn't just a phrase uttered by a General during the American Civil War - it is a statement of fact. I was waiting for Biggles or Bulldog Drummond to make an appearance. Children aren't spared the sight of hideously wounded soldiers coming back from Afghanistan - they know the cost of war today. Don't hold back from showing it multiplied a thousand - fold. The ending of "Passing bells" was telegraphed in the first ten minutes of the first episode,I doubt if it came as a surprise to any viewer over the age of eleven. Sadly,despite all the media coverage given to the centenary of the start of the war,there was only one person under 70 at the Remembrance Service in my local church yesterday.