World War II: Battlefront

A 12 episode long documentary series, Battlefront takes a look at various famous battles in the second World War.

The series episodes are about 23 minutes long, so the stories told by survivors and historians alike tend to be rather fast paced.

Now, what makes this series look really nice, is the fact they use real camera material from the era, which has been coloured in.  The effect is a sort of grainy and shaky Technicolor style at moments, but this kind of adds to the atmosphere of the series.

Ranging from the invasion of Norway, going over Gualdalcanal to the Ardennes while passing by Dieppe and Anzio, this series tackles a variety of theatres and antagonists, though Russia (Stalingrad for example) remains a lacking area.

But if you want a quick brush up on the general lines of the second World War, this series is a good starting point.  Just don`t expect really "deep" investigations into the battles as some more focussed documentaries tend to do...

Rating: 5.5 / 10