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Generation Kill
MINISERIES: HBO, begins Sunday 7/13 at 9:00p


8.6

based on 27 reviews
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based on 28 votes
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Get more information on this show at TV.com.

Official Show Site

Starring Alexander Skarsgard, Billy Lush, Brian Patrick Wade, Chance Kelly, David Barrera, Eric Ladin, Eric Nenninger, J. Salome Martinez Jr., James Ransone, and Jon Huertas

The Wire's David Simon produces this seven-part miniseries about the 2003 war on Iraq through the eyes of one Marine unit.

GENRE(S):	Drama, War
CREATED BY:	Evan Wright (book)
FIRST AIR DATE:	July 13, 2008

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Orlando Sentinel Hal Boedeker

Generation Kill stands in the tradition of classic war movies. Vivid storytelling, superb acting and a frank approach make this a TV landmark.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Tim Goodman

Generation Kill is rewarding in its complexity. It feels real - and that realness is bracing, sad and funny in equal measures.

100

Washington Post Tom Shales

Wright says. "After the Vietnam War ended, the onus of shame largely fell on the veterans. This time around, if shame is to be had when the Iraq conflict ends--and all indications are there will be plenty of it--the veterans are the last people in America to deserve it." Generation Kill makes that point so powerfully as to stand among the truest and most trenchant war movies of all time.

100

USA Today Robert Bianco

What Kill has to offer is clarity and clear-eyed empathy. TV's the better for it.

Entertainment Weekly Ken Tucker

Kill pays both you and its subjects two solid compliments: It doesn't scream ''Take heed: This is a work of art!'' And it lets you form your own opinions about what its social commentary is.

Chicago Tribune Maureen Ryan

It’s as addictive and absorbing, in its own way, as “The Wire.”

Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert

HBO's Generation Kill is remarkable.

Hollywood Reporter Ray Richmond

Bolstered by superb acting and first-rate direction and cinematography, Kill delivers the goods in ways both unexpected and rewarding.

Kansas City Star Aaron Barnhart

Once again Simon and his producing partner, Ed Burns, plunge us deeply into the culture of foul-mouthed men, many of them barely out of their teens, who have ready access to firearms and agendas that have little to do with the American dream that you and I understood growing up. And, as before, you can’t stop watching it.

Time James Poniewozik

Colbert is the series' rock, and a straightman contrast to the constantly yammering Person, his driver. As the stoic enigma and the hopped-up smart-ass speed through the desert landscape, you could almost take Kill for a surreal road comedy.

Wall Street Journal Dorothy Rabinowitz

It's best to get quickly past the confused and shapeless first episode and on to the rest, where the characters become individualized.

Miami Herald Glenn Garvin

A raucous, raunchy and utterly loving account of life at the bottom of the military food chain.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen

An engrossing, detailed military character drama, Generation Kill is a modern-day "Band of Brothers," a warts-and-all account that hits closer to home because it depicts such recent events.

PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs

Like Wright’s book, the series is disjointed and disturbing, a story of youthful workers who are underprepared, underequipped, and underinformed.

Baltimore Sun David Zurawik

There is a near-perfect symmetry between the sensibility of Wright's book and the work of Simon and Burns.

New York Daily News David Hinckley

Wright is a diligent reporter, and his material has been whipped into a smooth script under producers David Simon and Ed Burns.

The New York Times Alessandra Stanley

Generation Kill, which has a superb cast and script, provides a searingly intense, clear-eyed look at the first stage of the war, and it is often gripping. But like a beautiful woman who swathes herself in concealing clothes and distracting hats, the series fights its own intrinsic allure.

LA Weekly Robert Abele

There’s a formal integrity to the Simon-and-Burns storytelling style--predicated on the theory that details matter, complexity rules and you can’t force momentum--that meshes well with the close-up vividness of Wright’s dispatches from an often chaotic front.

TV Guide Matt Roush

Critical without being overtly political, with stretches of boredom punctuated by the sudden chaos of firefights where it’s impossible to distinguish innocent bystanders from insurgents, Generation Kill is both timely and timeless.

Variety Brian Lowry

This technically superior project intriguingly mirrors territory the producers explored in tackling Baltimore's mean streets, and while Baghdad's avenues are even meaner, the producers' impeccable craftsmanship is roughly the same.

Los Angeles Times Robert Lloyd

Generation Kill tends to play as a series of discrete events. I suppose an argument might be made that this mirrors the way that the constant threat of extinction, and subject always to a sudden change in (rarely explained) orders, makes one live in the moment. I don't think that was what the producers intended, but it works well enough for watching it.

Newark Star-Ledger Alan Sepinwall

If the world that Simon, Burns, Wright and company drop us into can be confusing at first (mirroring, as they intended, the confusion that Wright felt at the time), it's a fully-realized one that's both thousands of miles away (literally and figuratively) from the Baltimore of "The Wire" and one that will feel very familiar to anyone who spent a lot of time watching McNulty and Bunk drink at the train tracks.

New York Magazine John Leonard

From this mandala of childhood, anger, dread, incense, and excrement, Simon and Burns have mounted a war like no other on the small screen, without the solemn circular trudge of Combat!, the wise-guy wit of M*A*S*H, or the Dana Delany consolations of China Beach.

Newsday Verne Gay

You get the sense that the filmmakers' vision and Wright's are never quite in sync--or perhaps are in sync too perfectly.

Slate Troy Patterson

It plays like it's been built for antisocial boys--mchair heroes in love with guns and in search of demented adventure.

The New Yorker Nancy Franklin

If we got to know any of the characters in Generation Kill, the show might be more interesting, or, at least, more memorable.

New York Post Adam Buckman

The end result of all that effort, however, is a miniseries that's as dull and throbbing as a severe headache.

The average user rating for this tv show is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 28 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Keith A. gave it a2:
This is an incredibly pathetic attempt to paint those in the armed forces as either incompetent, antisocial or inconceivably dumb. The point is clear: the writer doesn't like the war in Iraq. Ok, we get it. Thank God it's only seven episodes.

czar gave it a10:
This is a great series. I love the way it portrays the long stretches of boredom that troops endure, without getting boring itself. I love the fact that petty motivations and screwups can have profound effects in the field. It also does a great job of showing how people growing up with ipods, laptops, video cameras and internet react when put in combat situations. One moment it feels like they are all on a high school trip next moment training kicks in and they are professional soldiers. Great dynamics. Shame that there are only 7 episodes and I have seen 5 already.

D gave it a10:
Great characters, very believable. Overall a joy to watch.

Baro L. gave it a2:
Mildly entertaining at times, but clearly created, written, and directed by people who have no idea how the military operates. The characters are the standard military cliche you would expect in a subpar series like this.

Buzz Lightyear gave it a10:
Careful adaptation from the book.

Brandon W. gave it a9:
To reviewers who think Generation Kill is trotting out movie cliches, this was based on Evan Wright's book. Although ostensibly an amalgamation of cliched war movie characters, the recon unit really did have the health nut, the histrionic fuck-up (Captain America), the ex-gangbanger, the countryboy, and the higher ups whose orders seem completely detached from the ground. Perhaps that is the series only fault. That those unaware of what this is based on, are thinking Burns and Simon (the two least likely to partake in cliches) are falling back on old war films for inspiration.

John H. gave it a10:
Sgt Brad Colbert was my daughter's boyfriend all thru high school and part of college. His experiences and growth thru this ordeal and the one in Afganistan are remarkable. He is a natural leader and has always had a calming effect on those depending on him in a crisis. I am proud to see the actor portraying him did not caricature him as a person. it is very difficult to take a combat situation and not glorify it when making a film...I think the filmmakers have something to be proud of here...this from a former Vietnam veteran.

Generation Kill MINISERIES: HBO, begins Sunday 7/13 at 9:00p

Generation Kill
MINISERIES: HBO, begins Sunday 7/13 at 9:00p