Surprisingly incoherent and boring

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Now i will begin by saying I have only watched episode one and it was more than enough to provoke my disappointment in the history channel for making this. While the screenplay, the drama and all were well played the actual history seems to say that McArthur and Patton won the war, Hitler a big player in these series as one would expect was just understated, not to mention Stalin and Lenin's 1 minute segment was just a nod to historical truth as to not let them be totally irrelevant while the great forces of "Murrica" conquered the battlefield's of WWI. This really annoys me as a person who expected a great historical representation for the characters in both the wars. Now one would let the fact that players not as major, i.e. Patton or McArthur to be let into the series, as I expected a more grand point of view, the stories of Roosevelt, Churchil, Hitler and Stalin, to slide but the almost criminal claims that McArthur won WWI for the allies, Hitler being portrayed as this friendless idiot from the beginning just annoyed to be frank. I want to be clear at this stage, I am not an anti- American freedom hating, Nazi commie as most "murricans" would call me, it's just that the facts in this "historical drama-documentary" are used wrongly and misleadingly, which is worse than not having any facts at all. I would call it propaganda but it hardly deserves that, as the most lay historical buff could say that this show just says- "America, **** YEAH". I could cover you in a barrage of historical facts to prove my point but that would just force a stupid debate which will mask the fact that this show is not worth the lines I am writing now. I am sad that this could've been a really awesome presentation into the personalities of Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt and Hitler to show us their points of view and yet it just is a this boring "documentary" which walks on a treaded path trying to earn a buck. I am not angry at the fact that the Americans won the wars (as I am not American or western European) I am actually quite happy even that they won the cold war for reasons too long to explain in this review, however, I am a great believer in historical truth and to be honest this just delivers misconceptions and stupidity to those watching it, oblivious to the facts and wanting to learn more via watch this series. I am greatly disappointed in the History channel and I hope to see real history on it like back in the day and like they are supposed to convey!

1) They compressed 30 years of history into 4 and a half hours. Things will get left out doing so. 2) This was never intended to be a doctorate-level course in European and American History. 3) It was entertainment! GOOD entertainment. Churchill's speech in Part II actually made me sit up a little straighter and sent chills down my spine. 4) Yes, there were equipment and armament inaccuracies. They also had a little thing called a BUDGET, keep that in mind that it wasn't an infinite one. 5) If you sat down to watch this with a checklist of every single event of World War I and II, you are missing the point. It painted the broad strokes very well. If it can get even ONE person interested in learning more about that era, then the producers did their job as far as I am concerned.

This mini-series has a lot of great narration and historical facts. I will give it that much. The first scene really draws you in with Adolph Hitler and the First World War, but that is just about as good as it gets theatrical wise. Everything after that tends to slope constantly. The re-enactments were the most pathetic I've ever seen. Multiple times a ship would be sailing in the ocean with either a British, American, Nazi, and Japanese flag attached to the rear. Each time the ship was the exact same and it had a helipad and satellite dishes all over the main section. Multiple times American Marines from the Pacific theater were show as Italian, French, or Polish soldiers. Half of the time Hitler would speak short sentences in German with subtitles, but when there were full dialogued scenes, he would speak in English. Many scenes with Patton as a Junior officer referred to him as a Captain pre World War I, then as a Lieutenant post World War I while wearing Lieutenant Colonel Silver Oak Leafs. It was a poor representation of the uniform in my respect.

My title says it all. There are many good aspects to this mini-series. The casting and acting is very good. The interview material is very good. The production value of the recreations is excellent with a few exceptions (the use of some images of modern warships comes to mind). Unfortunately, the accumulation of many small errors and some very large errors is enough for me to say that this show is not worth watching if you want solid information about the time period. Even if many of the factual errors has been corrected, there are many events and personalities that are mischaracterized in the narration. This could have been helped if the script had been vetted by bona fide historians. If it had been reviewed and approved by any historian at all, I would be very surprised.