Okay, I feel horrid here, but I have to be honest. Stick with HBO's other series, "Band of Brothers." This was a good series, but as soon as it started with the HBO choral of guys going "Ahhhhh" (for the HBO audio signature) my expectations rose and immediately and I was ready for a "Band of Brothers"-esque experience. I did not get it.
There were key differences that kept me from getting as involved with this series as I did with "Band of Brothers." It took a bit of reflection, but key was that "The Pacific" followed three story lines and the offshoots of each. "Band" followed the 82nd Airborne and that was it. The acting in "Band of Brothers" was better too and therefore made it easier to get emotionally into it and the characters. In "The Pacific," no, I did not become attached to any of the characters.
Okay, characters is perhaps the wrong term as the people followed in the series were real, but the series overall was just such a let down. It is sad that this came after "Band of Brothers" which was an incredible series. Perhaps, had this come before "Band of Brothers," I might have been more into it, but timing was against it.
The directing and cinematography were great, the story was, is, and always will be awesome, the plot, well, the plot is what is was: the invasion of the Pacific Islands and death crawl by the U.S. Marines toward Japan until its surrender. The acting, well, it was not that good and that just might have been the real key as to why it was so hard to get as involved here as I did with "Band of Brothers."
I have to pan the movie for entertainment but recommend it on an historical level. It can serve well as a companion to chapters you might read in a history book covering the Pacific Theater in WW II. By itself, a history book with a handful of pictures is too sterile. This series will force you to slow down and actually see/realize what the men of the U.S. Marine Corps endured and sacrificed so that we could have what we have today as Americans.
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