Leonardo da Vinci

Visually thrilling. .... It is likely that the master himself would have approved of this grand vision.

It is ambitious, musically, visually and intellectually. Directed by Mr. Burns, daughter Sarah Burns and David McMahon, “Leonardo da Vinci” is always a feast for the eyes and often enough for the mind.

A project that isn’t really enlightening about da Vinci as a person, but explores the polymath’s intellectual and artistic processes in a way that’s effectively cumulative and often fascinating.

Bursting with fascinating tidbits, but it also does a good job of explaining why each of the maestro’s brushstrokes was innovative and important.

A thorough and engrossing biography that can’t help but feel incomplete, so vast and unusual is its subject.

Given such astonishing material, Ken Burns — of all people — feels the need to hype it up. The temptation is understandable. The giving in to it is not. The first rule of nonfiction, on screen no less than on the page, is you trust your material. .... To the extent “Leonardo” shows us the results of that seeing, it can be transcendently good. To the extent it distracts from those results, it’s another departure for Burns: a real disappointment.

No film can cover everything, but “Leonardo da Vinci” directors Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon might have saved time for a few deeper dives if they had simply cut the superfluous idolatry from too many of their talking-head interview subjects.