Prohibition

In the end, it may be the most fun you'll ever have with a Ken Burns film.

Taken together there is in these 5 1/2 hours, breathtaking in their scope and detail, nothing approaching a dull moment.

The 18th Amendment--that "Noble Experiment" that turned out to be one of the country's biggest civic failures--is the subject of a fascinating new documentary by Ken Burns.

More than any of Burns' documentaries except The Civil War, Prohibition provides viewers with a real feel for the times as well as new and surprising information.

[It manages] to be extremely entertaining, packed with amusing details and highly relevant to today's politics.

The series presents an often-engrossing look at a unique cultural moment in America, when high-mindedness was in the saddle yet lawlessness was never so pervasive.

At something more than five hours, Prohibition, while interesting from moment to moment, is longer than it needs to be, and made even longer by Burns' habitual stateliness.