Richard Holder

Eagerly awaited but, after four episodes, I feel short-changed. Whilst still high class TV it lacks heart IMO. Hanks said that Band Of Brothers was about how war binds fellow soldiers together while The Pacific showed the long term effects of war on men. MOTA doesn’t seem to have a similar underlying point binding it together. BOB was understated and shot in almost B&W muted tones but this is big bright and in one’s face. The CGI is predictably amazing but too technicolor. Tending towards ‘US won the war’ with shots of bare- chested pin-up US pilots etc. Too many hackneyed clichés to be credible, very ‘Hollywood’. BOB set the bar impossibly high. MOTA scores for incredible realism, technical accuracy and skilled CGI but it’s less than the sum of its parts for me. Take away the aerial footage and there’s very little happening on the ground in which to get absorbed. There wasn’t one single dull moment in BOB. Still worth watching if only to remind us of the bravery, suffering and sacrifice made by extraordinary men.