Generation Kill

Obviously, any follow-up to The Wire was bound to suffer by comparison, but the first episode of David Simon's Iraq War miniseries, Generation Kill, was a pretty big letdown nonetheless. I'll be coming back to it next week - first episodes are always a tough thing to pull off - but so far a miniseries that promised to show us "the new face of American war" looks like a mash-up of things we've seen before: Its portrait of American man-children in the desert that will be familiar to anyone who's seen Jarhead, or Three Kings, or Stop-Loss, or even documentaries like Gunner Palace. It's competent, sure, but it isn't particularly revelatory - and with Simon and Co. involved, revelatory is what I was hoping for.

Comments

I'd sadly have to agree. I had hopes for the series, but this does seem to be the sequel of Jarhead. The bags of Skittles seem to be the only thing different 15 years later.

Posted by Daniel | July 14, 2008 10:56 AM

Agree. But like Ross says -- Episode 1 only.

Posted by Mike | July 14, 2008 1:43 PM

The tone changes significantly from ep 1 to ep 2 and beyond. Will be curious to read your follow up thoughts. One key handicap remains -- too many characters, too few to care about.

Posted by Christian Toto | July 14, 2008 1:53 PM

Isn't there a fundamental problem that this is based on a book you've already read so you know what is going to happen? It is pretty much impossible to be revelatory in that context.

Posted by eric k | July 14, 2008 10:13 PM