Rating: 
Summary: Flawed yet excellent
Review: The writing, narration, and interviews are poor, the music is perhaps too overtly manipulative, but the footage is fantastic. I hear the director's cut is better but I haven't seen it yet.
Rating: 
Summary: the most powerful anti-nuclear documentary I've ever seen!
Review: Almost every nuclear explosion on Earth has been captured. From the awesome soundtrack (which I'm desperate to own) to the breathtaking shots of the nukes themselves, this documentary speaks strongly about how far we've come and how low we've gone in order to weild ultimate power, regardless of what we do to ourselves and the world around us.
Rating:
Summary: Wagnerian Music Enhances A-Bomb Footage
Review: This is a film which works on many levels. The degree to which the testers of nuclear weapons, French, English, Chinese, Soviet and American, flagrantly detonated their weapons into the biosphere is astounding and apalling. The damage that these tests have done to the planet are incalculable.Yet, the restored footage reveals what a beatiful sight those detonations were. The immense power which was unleased by these weapons must have made their builders feel like gods. I am sure there was the arrogance of the gods present as well. For me, apart from Bill Shatner's above average narration, the music is what pulls all the words and imagry together. Written especially for the film, it is as stunning a score as I have ever heard on film. Communicating awe, dread and majesty, the music counterpoints the film and narration in a unique, three-way ballet. This should be required viewing for every high school student in North America. Remember: we still have the damn things. Submitted by Colin Barnard, Toronto, CANADA.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: The best footage and narration of any nuclear wepons movie ever well researched and well filmed. I couldn't stop watching it I would recomend this video to anyone interested in the topic at hand.
Rating:
Summary: This movie is magnificent
Review: Peter Kuran's redoing and revamping of atomic bomb footage, combined with William Shatner's distinct narration provides for an excellent movie about the most interesting developments this century has brought. Everyone at some point has seen some atomic weapon footage, but nothing like this has been seen before, ever. This movie is a good way to safely watch an atomic explosion, and not get hurt.
Rating:
Summary: Very good movie
Review: If you like a historical a moral view on the testing and delvelopment of the hydrogen/atomic bomb this is your movie. I personaly enjoyed this film and will wacth it until the tape breaks. END
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Video
Review: This is an excellent, awe inspiring, documentary video on the beginning of the nuclear age. The digitally restored films of nuclear explosions are quite spectacular. William Shatner is an excellent narrator and the soundtrack is very good and fits the film perfectly. There were some things in the film I didn't like at all. At two parts in the film, they show nuclear testing on animals, and it is quite horrific seeing these goats, pigs, etc. being chained up and slowly dying. It is very awful and not for the squemish. They also showed victims of Hiroshima, but it wasn't nearly as graphic as the animal scenes. Also, the 3D section at the end of the video is very disappointing. It is mostly narration and only shows one or two explosions, and the 3D effect with the glasses does not work at all. Please note: I purchased the VHS version, not DVD.
Rating:
Summary: I will watch it again and again--well worth the price
Review: This is a very well produced movie. It includes footage of (1) bombs on Japan, (2) bomb tests, (3) preparation for and results of tests, (4) contemporaneous military public relations stuff, (5) interviews with atomic bomb scientists including Teller, (6) political stuff like treaties and complaints at the U.N., (7) technical information about the bombs. The bomb tests at Bikini on the armada of warships are very interesting. This movie is very informative, sometimes breathtaking and frightening. The sound track is great. This movie passes my most important test: I have watched it several times, and I will watch it many more times. It is well worth the price.
Rating:
Summary: The most surreal kind of horror
Review: For those unfortunate souls who are thrilled by war (almost none of whom have ever actually been in one) this film will be like pornography. I'm not writing this for you.
For the rest of us who, for whatever reason, want to believe that world peace and unconditional love are possible, have a bottle of Advil ready if you watch this DVD because it will make your head hurt. It will make you want to crawl beneath a rock and weep, or find a spaceship to take you far, far away from this planet.
This film is a brilliant achievement. It successfully balances itself between presenting "big science" in action and shining a spotlight on human madness. Those viewers who are a part of this madness won't see anything unusual in the (extensive) footage that doesn't involve actual explosions; those who abhor it will only be able to shake their heads in wonder at the poker-faced insanity of it all.
More than a film about atomic weapons, this is a film about mankind's apparently limitless capacity for "normalizing" almost anything; even suicidal, mutual mass incineration. I believe that the counter-culture revolution that began in the mid-60's was in large part a reaction to a society that was trying to "normalize" the idea of Grandma keeping her gas mask and radiation suit close at hand in the kitchen cabinet, right between the steak sauce and the cake flour.
A nuclear explosion is just a release of energy. After the fourth or fifth one, they all start looking the same. But there is no end to the fascination offered by scenes of people making attempts to "live with" the reality of impending nuclear war. That's something so outlandish and so incomprehensible that it bears watching again and again.
My only complaint about this film, (and the reason for my withholding the fifth star,) is that the director and co. are far too squeamish. We get one brief scene of pigs running in panic as their skins are broiled off, before the blast wave hits them. We get another momentary glimpse of a severely burned pig, apparently still alive, being "observed" by white-suited scientists who apparently find agony and death-throes very interesting and fascinating.
But what we don't see, is what radiation sickness really looks like. We don't see the frozen figures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, arms raised against the last light they would ever see, standing amidst the wreckage as steaming statues of flesh ash. We don't get to see the burned children, writhing and weeping in agony because somebody decided to drop a bomb on their city while they were playing.
But I suppose if we'd seen all that, then the film might not have sold as many copies. As it is, for anyone who is alive from the neck up, it will leave you slack jawed.
Rating:
Summary: A Stunning, Important Document.
Review: "The Atomic Bomb Movie" is the most impressive, visually stunning and well-assembled film ever made on the history of the nuclear bomb and the various tests that followed after the end of World War 2. It is a documentary made with real passion for the subject, the information and visual records. This is obviously Peter Kuran's baby (listen to the commentary track where he speaks about the awakening of his interest in nuclear testing and the eventual production of this film with the awe and wonder of discovery), every aspect of his dedication to the project is evident in how much information he gives us, the detail in the assembly and most of all, in the painstaking restoration of old military footage documentating numerous tests. Visually this is one of the most incredible films you will ever see. One can only watch in astonishment at the size and destruction and yet beauty we find in the shots of tests ranging from Bikini island to even outer space. For many a lot of what the movie shows will be shockingly new (for me the biggest surprise was indeed the information about nuclear bombs being detonated in space). Kuran takes inside of the effects of a nuclear blast, so much as to show us exactly what an attack scenario would be like if you were inside your home and a bomb was dropped. And all this is done with incredible clarity, a lot of the old footage has been lovingly polished to a gloss and rarely do any images look old or scratchy. All this is framed with William Stromberg's rich, epic score that marches and pulses with great gusto. "The Atomic Bomb Movie" is that special kind of documentary that is perfect for classroom exhibition but also an awesome experience for normal home viewing. Kuran has done a service by assembling this film because it is important to preserve this information for future generations. In his commentary Kuran stresses the importance of not letting people forget about the history of nuclear testing, so it doesn't repeat itself. Do not miss this film, it is important and unforgettable.
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