Oh, Ken Burns, where do I even begin? Your films are too good, your source material too thorough. How do you do it?

In case you’ve been living under a rock, legendary documentary director Ken Burns released his latest series, “The American Revolution,” and it’s just about everything I was hoping it would be. This will be a glaze article by the way.

I’ll get one thing out of the way right now. This one is not better than “Baseball.” There’s no topping that one. I also don’t think it’s better than his country music documentary. There’s levels to peak, and this isn’t quite on that level.

It’s peak in its own way.

If you’ve never seen a Ken Burns documentary, it usually contains a lot of expert interviews and voiceovers reading from journal entries, essays and various other firsthand accounts. This continues that formula just the same, but this is the most stacked voice cast I have ever seen in one of his series. 

I’ll give you just a few names: Tom Hanks. Meryl Streep. Josh Brolin. Samuel L. Jackson. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

Burns also got Paul Giamatti to do his role of John Adams once again, which I thought was a nice nod to anyone who watched that miniseries. Corbin Bleu (the guy from “Jump In!”) is doing parts in this as well.

And the documentary is incredible in its coverage. It covers all the basics, like the battles in the Revolution and the major figures and events. But it also doesn’t gloss over some of the less glamorous sides of the era, like slavery and conflict with Native Americans. 

It depicts the Founding Fathers as less of these infallible supermen and instead as very flawed human beings. It doesn’t demonize them, but it doesn’t deify them either.

This is a very good documentary, and the release date so near the holidays is perfectly timed for watching this thing all at once, which you should go do right now.

Official Score: 10/10

Categories: Arts & Entertainment