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So much average

Pretty Good

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Yeah, I agree with most of the previous reviewers. The sad part is that National Geographic should have tons of reference material about the decades preceding Columbus's arrival. If they were going to show what happened AFTER, why not focus more on Gold, Silver, Gems, and any thing else they could have the native populace dig up in slavery? Why not investigate all the religious movements, and their deleterious treatment of the native people? BEFORE, though, was basically left alone. Crass commercialism; like "Drain the (fill in the Blank)". How about the kind of informative, factual presentation we all know they are capable of, rather than the "History Channel Hollywood" version?

I have to agree with the review titled "Misleading Title." It spends an inordinate amount of time covering America AFTER Columbus. That was disappointing because I was looking forward to learning what the title promised but didn't deliver. As for being political and biased, there's enough of that to go around here. I can't say it was subtle nor tremendously obvious. Nor can I say either way is appreciated. I will agree with those who value the production quality, it is good. But I reiterate that you should not expect it to spend the bulk of its time on America BEFORE Columbus. Disappionting.

Much of this documentary is NOT about America before Columbus. They spend a lot of time talking about parallel developments in Europe and the European "discovery" and invasion of the New World. They also were not detailed or comprehensive in their discussion of pre-Columbian civilizations. I wanted to know more about the many diverse and advanced societies that rose and fell across two continents prior to Europeans but that I've only heard a little about, but it was more of a shallow overview of only a few small areas. How do you title a documentary "America Before Columbus" and then spend the majority of the time talking about Europe?I think people who have never read Howard Zinn and don't know the true history of the conquest of the New World will learn something, but I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. I don't know about anyone else, but I get tired of learning about every country and land's history based on its contact with Europeans. I thought this would be different, but it wasn't. I was very disappointed. However, I'm giving it 6 out of 10 stars because others could stand to learn something from this documentary.

This is one of those riveting documentaries that comes along once in a while. The cinematography is beautiful. Using many motion shots over landscapes and forests and computer animation, a useful overview of the conquest of the Americas and the Columbian Exchange is given. Many of the ideas are strongly reminiscent of Jarrod Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel.Contrary to the sentiments expressed in the inexplicable and unjustified rant by SanFernandoCurt in his review here, the language is relatively neutral and non-political -- it tells it like it is. There were many things -- good and bad -- that resulted from the Columbian Exchange. There is no hint of "Marxism" or spin in this documentary.There is mention of biological imperialism once in the second episode. I'll admit that the 100 million population estimate is at the high end of the range -- Europe only had 60 million in 1492. But why not? As the documentary states the Americas are a fertile land that was managed by the natives and is 10 times the size of Europe. Diseases like smallpox and influenza probably wiped out 90%+ of the native American population.