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Band of Brothers Customer Reviews (91 - 93 of 117 Reviews)

A miniseries in the tradition of Saving Private Ryan
Catapulted by momentum from "Saving Private Ryan", the astounding achievement of "Band of Brothers" was badly undermined by its ill-timed September 11th premiere. Based on the book by the late Stephen Ambrose, this HBO series follows Easy Company, an elite American airborne (parachute) company, all the way from training camp to German occupation duty. The death toll amongst these men was horrific, and reverence for their sacrifice clings onto every frame. Scattered hopelessly across Normandy, this unit wrenched the crucial town of Carentan from ammo-starved Germans, participated in the massive airborne debacle of Operation Market Garden (rescuing many British paratroopers), suffered horrible losses in at the Battle of the Bulge, held off an "offensive" at Haguenau, and finally seized the "Eagle's Nest", Hitler's personal luxury perch in the mountains.

The highly effective style pioneered by "Saving Private Ryan" (steady-cam with washed out colors) suffuses the entire series with a gritty documentary feel. Occasionally an obvious CGI or studio shot will clash with lush location shooting, but overall the production values are staggering. Even minor historical details are studiously reproduced, but, like "Private Ryan", the camera never wallows in indulgent spectacle. The miniseries format is used to full advantage to present a truly comprehensive account of war from a wide variety of viewpoints that normally can't be appreciated. Since the events of history itself do not neatly line themselves up in the sort of dramatic arc viewers are accustomed to, some may leave the series with a sense that it is dramatically uneven. Each episode, usually a bit over an hour long, is elegantly introduced in both mood and content by interviews with actual survivors from the company.

Like the best of war films, the emphasis is not on bloodshed and action, but on human relationship and suffering within the company. The performances, by a dedicated cast of largely unknown players, are uniformly excellent, but very little help is given to the first time viewer in identifying the multitude of war-weary faces (often, even after several important appearances, a character's full name is never mentioned). While this can be frustrating for new viewers, it allows for dialogue unencumbered by forced introductions and creates immense replay value, with new insights appearing with every viewing.

The character confusion is alleviated nicely by some of the DVD's reference features. Accompanying each episode is a picture gallery of the important names and faces in that episode, as well as a glossary of terminology and the general locations within Europe. A somewhat less useful timeline is included, and a few of the most important characters are given nice dramatic collages (perhaps used when promoting the series).

The DVD offers 5.1, DTS, and surround sound, all of which are richly spectacular. Only Spanish is offered in subtitle, and (unfortunately) no commentary tracks accompany any of the episodes. A 30 minute "Making Of" feature briefly describes techniques used in filming in a promotional sort of way, but it is not as promotional as a feature describing the gala screening at Normandy (very few of the veteran's reactions are shown) nor as obnoxious as a Jeep advertisement that somehow snuck onto the disc.

Two further wonderful additions are provided in the DVD: a full and moving documentary, consisting solely of the gripping interviews of Easy Company's survivors, and Ron Livingston's (Office Space) thorough and very likeable video diary of the actor's boot camp.

Wonderful mini series but...
it is always on tv!

If you have HBO, and who doesnt, you can watch each episode anytime you want. But if you are a hardcore fan of the series then pick up... but the price is pretty steep.

Meh.
Okay, the acting was great, effects were great, realism was pretty good, authenticity not bad as well. It was a great way to waste a day or two.

I'm not an Ambrose fan, which detracts from the series a little bit. I'm just not into his ultra-glorification of war, and felt that though they did a good job showing the horrors of combat, the crappiness of downtime (with the exception of the cold in the Battle of the Bulge episodes) were really neglected. These guys were constantly hungry, sleep deprived, on edge, etc...if you took the miniseries at its word, they jumped from battle to battle, with nary a break, in combat 6 or 7 days a week.

My biggest beef was on the special features. There were a few, but for the size of this boxed set, I expected something more. One documentary, a video diary, and a making of. Not very much. Like I said, I'm not an Ambrose fan, but with his input into the series I was really hoping for some historical extra stuff, maybe some mini documentaries about what else was going on in the war during X part of X episode, to put everything into perspective.

The worst, though, was "The Message From Jeep". It shows men and vehicles coming onto and up the beach at Normandy, with some spoken nonsense. The men fade away, as do the vehicles, to show a bare beach. Then, three modern Jeep vehicles appear on the beach.

This is, without a doubt, the worst case of crass comercialization and capitalism I've EVER seen in my life. Trying to use the miniseries, and the blood spilled at Normandy, to sell Jeeps????!!?! How dare they??? I was going to give this four stars, but after that...it left such a bad taste in my mouth I don't ever want to own the set (which I was planning on buying after watching a borrowed copy from my brother-in-law). Furthermore, I never, ever want to purchase a vehicle from Jeep, used or new. I had planned, at some point in my life, to purchase a Jeep Wrangler. There's no chance of that happening now.

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