Narrated by golden-voiced NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, D-Day 3D: Normandy 1944 covers the pivotal World War II battle in just 45 minutes. This is an arduous task, but writer and director Pascal Vuong is up to the challenge with this appealing documentary.
Although the onslaught of facts and occasional figures can be overwhelming, the general idea of the when, why and how is easily understood by the diverse audience: prepubescent children to the World War II veteran in front of me in line.
To capture the essence of the battle, D-Day uses a wide variety of visuals and audio to maintain the audience’s attention. Viewers are shown modern day Normandy, computer-generated landscapes of the town in 1944 and a map showing the troop movements.The implanted anecdotes are displayed as images in a pop-up book and the ‘sands of Normandy’.
All of these combined efforts stitch together the various details and viewpoints of the event, giving the audience a deeper understanding of the importance of the capture of Normandy; after seeing the film, the crowd appeared enlightened and delighted with the Allied Powers’
defeat of Hitler’s Third Reich.
Overall, the film can be deemed a success, leaving the elderly viewers wanting more as they refused to leave even during the rolling, pictureless credits.
