The Pacific: Complete HBO Series [Blu-ray][2010]

When I heard that Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg had teamed up again to make the miniseries The Pacific, I was thrilled. Now that I've watched it in its entirety (over just two and a half days!), I can honestly say that it's a must-see piece of work. It's a masterpiece. As other reviewers have rightfully said, there's considerable contrast between this and Band Of Brothers. Is one better than the other? I don't think it's possible to say, because it's like comparing chalk and cheese. Both are 5 star + achievements, incredible memorials to the men who served and died in Europe and the Far East during World War Two. Both bring us the stories of real soldiers, real heroes, and what happened to them.

One of the main attractions of this series is that it tells us of the incredibly savage battles that took place across the Pacific as the Japanese were gradually dislodged from the thousands of tiny islands that they've occupied. This is a little known aspect of the war, which deserves to be more widely known. Shocked by the brutality of one particular battle, on an island called Peleliu (now part of the nation of Palau), I did some research, discovering that the struggle on Peleliu had indeed been savage beyond measure. It is in fact regarded as the most difficult battle that the US armed forces fought in WW2. Worse than D-Day! It took more than two months to gain control of an island just 5 square miles in area, and the Marines lost thousands and thousands of men.

I've seen some great films about the war in the Pacific, among them the outstanding Flags of our Fathers & Letters from Iwo Jima, directed by Clint Eastwood, and Kokoda - 39th Battalion, about the Australian experience in Papua New Guinea. But nothing could prepare me for the relentless assault on the senses that is the Pacific. Buy it. It's unforgettable.

Footnote: if you want to read more on the subject, two of the soldiers who were portrayed in the series wrote about their experiences. I've bought both books already. They are: Helmet for my Pillow by Robert Leckie and With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge (for me the outstanding character of the series). I can't wait to read them.

Ben Kane, author of The Forgotten Legion.

August 1942. The United States Marine Corps lands in force on the island of Guadalcanal and begins the long, gruelling campaign of 'island-hopping'. Over the next three years they will take the fight against Japanese forces on islands all across the western Pacific, drawing ever closer to the Japanese home islands and victory.

The Pacific is HBO's companion series to their acclaimed 2001 series Band of Brothers. Like the earlier series, The Pacific follows American soldiers across a single theatre of war (albeit a far vaster one). Unlike Band of Brothers, which was able to concentrate on a single company of the 10st Airborne and cover its journey in some detail (the whole series, bar the opening training sequence, only spanned nine months), The Pacific is rather diffuse in its focus. It covers a period of three years and the almost modular nature of the war in the Pacific (multiple major battles raging simultaneously on islands hundreds of miles apart) means it is impossible to focus on one unit throughout the whole war. The series copes with the problem by dividing the narrative into three storylines following three marines (John Basilone, Bob Leckie and Eugene Sledge), but this ultimately proves to be a move with mixed success.

Plaudits first. The Pacific is visually stunning. Filmed on location on Australia's Pacific coast, the series employs impressive location filming, practical special effects and CGI enhancements to depict WWII combat on-screen more viscerally and in a more convincing manner even than Band of Brothers. The Pacific really does look and sound like a movie, especially on Blu-Ray, and as an audio/visual experience is always impressive. The lead actors - Joseph Mazzello, James Badge Dale and Jon Seda as Sledge, Leckie and Basilone respectively - are impressive and are lent able support by the likes of William Sadler (as the infamous Colonel 'Chesty' Puller) and Rami Malek, who gives an offbeat but fascinating performance as 'Snafu' Shelton. In terms of direction, production values and acting, the series is overwhelmingly impressive.

The issues arise from structural choices for the series. The Pacific War was a very different beast to the Western Front of WWII in Europe, spanning vaster distances and featuring the marines, navy and army fighting simultaneously on different fronts. An immediate drawback of only having ten episodes to tell this story is that other units and services outside the Marine Corps get short shrift. None of the immense naval battles in the theatre (Midway, the Coral Sea etc) are really mentioned and the massive American bombing campaign against Japan is not featured. There are some nods to the other services (the Battle of Savo Island is briefly watched by the marines from the shore; aerial assaults on Japanese positions are occasionally shown) but the focus is squarely on the marines.

Even this is problematic. To get across the scale of the conflict, HBO conflates three separate stories together. John Basilone's story allows them to show life on the home front (Basilone was sent home after Guadalcanal, initially serving as a PR representative to raise money for the war and later as a marine instructor before returning to the field during the battle for Iwo Jima), whilst Bob Leckie is used to cover the initial stages of the fighting and also the role of Australia in the conflict. After Leckie is wounded and forced to return home, Eugene Sledge steps up as our principal POV character and we see most of the latter stages of the war through his eyes. This baton-passing approach to the narrative sounds good but ultimately feels disjointed, as the three soldiers' paths never cross (aside a fictitious brief meeting between Sledge and Leckie). It also complicates things by giving us three different sets of supporting characters to also get to know, which is a tall order for just ten episodes.

Which isn't to say that what we are left with is still not compelling. The actors do a great job of selling their characters' respective storylines: Leckie is left on the front lines a little too long and begins suffering from battle fatigue; Basilone is tired of being hailed a hero at home whilst his friends are still fighting and is anxious to return to the front; and Sledge is angry at missing out the start of the war due to poor health and is keen to prove himself, only to ultimately start losing perspective as the gruelling months of combat unfold. These are familiar storylines, but are given added depth and weight by being true (all three marines are real, and Leckie and Sledge's memoirs provide the basis for the series).

The overwhelming feeling of the series is one of despair. The fighting is savage and without quarter, and the marines often feel that their fighting and dying over specks of land in the middle of nowhere is pointless. There is a lack of any type of grand strategic overview which is true to the experience of the soldiers on the ground. Notably, there is no equivalent to the Why We Fight episode of Band of Brothers (where the 101st liberates a concentration camp and their horrific experiences harden their resolve to help destroy the Nazi regime). The marines are left feeling bereft of a purpose, which makes the horrors they experience strike home even harder. It's no wonder that many of them are shown breaking down or needing urgent time away from the front to reorient themselves. HBO should be congratulated for not downplaying these angles, but it often makes for very hard viewing.

The Pacific (****) is ultimately worth watching. It's a stunning production that makes some hard comments about war and its ultimate savagery, even when a war is worth fighting. It doesn't glorify war and shows its horrors in full force, which can make for hard viewing, but the superior acting and writing make it compelling. Structurally the series is disjointed, and would have benefitted from a tighter focus on maybe just one or two of the marines featured. Extending it to three stretches the story almost to breaking point. However, once you adjust to the structural issues the series is an impressive piece of work. It is available now on DVD (UK, USA) and Blu-Ray (UK, USA).

Some may argue it is unfair to compare The Pacific to Band of Brothers, however given it is another WW2 drama miniseries produced by a Spielberg & Hanks dream team in exactly the same format I think they should be contrasted.

Although I am the patient type The Pacific is a very slow starter, this wouldn't matter if the acting was up to the standards of the pyrotechnics and special effects, but it isn't in many places. Of the main characters, Jon Seda who plays John Basilone is the stand-out performance whereas the likes of Robert Leckie (played by James Badge Dale) are unconvincing and some of the romantic scenes with him are cringe worthy. It is true that overall the acting is a far cry from Band of Brothers and I am unsure as to why this is. With the exception of John Basilone, character development is patchy and thus it is difficult to empathise with their story. In addition, I couldn't help but notice the similarity between Basilone's story and that of the characters in Flags of our Flathers i.e. paraded as a war hero and used as a poster-boy to encourage Americans' contribution towards the war economy. But in reality he is left with feelings of guilt as he sits it out cosily while his comrades continue the fight.

The Pacific still is an absorbing and enjoyable experience and admittedly it could never live up to the hype machine surrounding it. The production values are what is expected of a Spielberg behemoth and the battle scenes are highly impressive, although not quite as intense or brutal as Saving Private Ryan or Assembly, to name just two. But after each episode I was expecting the The Pacific to take off, but alas it never actually does. I just can't help but feel it could have been so much more, especially given the $150 million budget and every resource under the sun available to them.

I appreciate The Pacific is a different approach to WW2 drama, focusing more on the events and story rather than the characters, however it feels stuck in second gear for most of the time and only occasionally moves up to third. Just my opinion at the end of the day but I was left rather dissatisfied and unfulfilled.