Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Mankind: The Story of All of Us Blu-ray Movie Review

Wait. . .where's the episode about me?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 18, 2012

Mankind: The Story of All of Us might seem to be an awfully tall order for any short form documentary series, but take solace in the fact that this History outing isn’t subtitled The Story of Each of Us, which might have been an even more daunting task. Twelve episodes might seem like far too few to tackle something of this scope and magnitude, but of course History isn’t exactly shy about redacting huge amounts of information into more manageable quantities, as their previous special History of the World in Two Hours so perfectly demonstrated. History tends to do a mostly excellent job with these massively themed documentaries, and this project, while keeping to a generally chronlogical outline, is rather smartly built around ideas rather than epochs, drawing correspondences between far flung events and personages that casual observers and even armchair historians may find unusually entertaining and illuminating. But like so many other History outings, Mankind: The Story of All of Us is hobbled by frequent pretentiousness, as well as a sort of manic quality that never allows any given factoid time to really sink in before another gambit of quick cuts and flashy visual and audio effects wash over the viewer, as if all this data simply isn’t interesting enough in and of itself and which the series’ producers evidently feel need gussying up to appeal to what one might almost assume would be an ADHD audience (based on the editing techniques alone).

Trying to tell the entire history of Mankind in twelve forty-five minute or so episodes is on its very face kind of ridiculous, but History has its modus operandi down pat, no matter which individual producers happen to be in charge of any given project. Mankind: The Story of Us All is a slickly produced series of anecdotes that draws a number of general conclusions from specific individual stories. As such, it’s like a Reader’s Digest overview of major events, or at least major personages, throughout history. There are broad strokes here, but relatively little fine detail.

What Mankind: The Story of All of Us does exceedingly well is blend stories that many will recognize with a number of intriguing, lesser known tales. Therefore, for every “Ben Franklin flies his kite in a lightning storm” sequence, the viewer is offered such relatively unknown commodities as, say, The Pine Tree Rebellion, part of the incipient Revolutionary War that never quite attained the status of the Boston Tea Party, for example. This is where this series generally shines, able to paint huge sweeping canvases with just a couple of interwoven sequences.

Sometimes there are outright surprises, as when the episode entitled Plague starts with a long sequence about Genghis Khan and the huge swath of territory he managed to conquer in an amazingly short amount of time (a much greater area than the Romans conquered over the course of hundreds of years, as this episode points out). Why is an episode ostensibly about one of the great bacterial scourges to afflict our species talking about another kind of scourge? There happens to be a rather salient connection, and while many associate the Bubonic Plague with Europe, it turns out it actually began in Asia along the trade routes opened up by Genghis Khan.

Mankind: The Story of All of Us falls prey to some of the same issues that crop up in far too many History outings, namely a reliance on sometimes too sanguine talking heads, which in this case include a number of “celebrities” like Brian Williams and Dr. Oz, as well as an amped up visual style that injects nonstop flash and flair into an enterprise that needs perhaps a bit more restraint and reflection. Virtually no moment throughout all twelve episodes isn’t filled with zooms, pans, quick cuts, special effects and virtually every other gizmo (visual and aural) that the producers could throw at the viewer. In fact, about the only stasis evident in this series comes during the usually brief (like one or two sentences) talking head sequences.

It’s hard to complain too much about Mankind: The Story of All of Us, though, for it is inarguably a fascinating enterprise that weaves together a really astounding amount of information in a largely enjoyable fashion. And despite many of the twelve episodes focusing on the various destructive tendencies of our species, the overall tone of Mankind: The Story of All of Us is actually resolutely upbeat, positing a hopeful future. The series might be seen as too sanguine itself in that regard, and the thought of colonizing Mars (this series’ final image) might not be that exciting of a prospect for some, at least in terms of being a symbol for the “bright tomorrow” we as a species might soon be enjoying. But there’s something to be said for a species that has been able to weather so many storms and emerge relatively unscathed, and perhaps in that way Mankind: The Story of All of Us’ rushed, kind of chaotic presentation is an apt metaphor for what we as a species have been through.

Mankind: The Story of All of Us Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mankind: The Story of All of Us is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of History and A&E Home Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The large bulk of this series looks really fantastic, though it's hard to talk about things like "accurate" color or "clarity" of the image due to so many of the reenactments and other little snippets being so artificially color graded or tweaked with digital grain and the like. For a baseline, you can look at the talking heads sequences, which are about the most "normal" looking thing in the series, and here we're offered really robust flesh tones and exceptional fine detail, helped by the fact that most of these sequences are shot in close-up. The rest of the series generally looks great as well, though there's an alarming disparity in some of the CGI. Certain elements look just fine (Ben Franklin's lightning storm's "static electricity" or the Mars landing that caps the series) while other segments, notably the Titanic, look simply dreadful, like they were cobbled together on some ancient CAD system. Generally speaking, the image is quite sharp and well detailed, though the series' emphasis on nonstop quick cut editing makes it hard to tell sometimes.

Mankind: The Story of All of Us Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mankind: The Story of All of Us's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is as relentlessly aggressive as most History outings, but it has one salient thing to recommend it: it does not have the overpowering LFE that hobbled this series' sibling documentary America: The Story of Us. There is ubiquitous LFE roaring through the subwoofer here, but it's relatively restrained and never overpowers Josh Brolin's well done narration, which remains anchored in the front channels. Each episode has abundant surround activity, courtesy not just of the "whooshes" that seem to accompany every quick cut edit or segue, but also due to a lot of well placed environmental ambient sound effects, as well as sequences that feature large crowds and the like. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is extremely wide throughout all twelve episodes.

Mankind: The Story of All of Us Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Disc One Bonus (HD; 17:41) includes:

  Domesticating the Dog

  
  

  Building the Pyramids

  
  

  Fire

  
  

  The Ice Age

  
  

  Birth of Humans

  
  

  The Earliest Humans

• Disc Two Bonus (HD; 13:40) includes:

  Rise of the Incas

  
  

  Taming the Horse

  
  

  The Plague

  
  

  Genghis Khan

Mankind: The Story of All of Us Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mankind: The Story of All of Us probably tries to do too much for its own good, but the fact that it manages to get so much information crammed into so relatively few episodes is really rather remarkable. The series' writing, while occasionally portentous, is quite strong, though some of the commentary will probably evoke unintended guffaws from time to time. What works best here are the unexpected connections between far flung events or some little told or not well remembered nuggets of information about famous people (like the fact that Christopher Columbus survived a near drowning after having been left for dead by pirates early in his seafaring career). There's no getting around the fact that by its very nature Mankind: The Story of All of Us is a mishmash, but as with any stew made out of copious ingredients, even picky eaters will be able to extract a tasty morsel or two. This Blu-ray offers nice looking video and a really well done surround mix, as well as some agreeable supplements. Recommended.