- Network: ReelzChannel
- Series Premiere Date: Apr 3, 2011
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Critic Reviews
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The Kennedys is eight hours long, trying to strike an uncomfortable balance between high-minded and trashy. It does not succeed.
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I can see why multiple networks passed on The Kennedys: not just because it's a political hot potato, but because it's a cobbled-together, mean-spirited piece of work that can't help alienating viewers, whether you venerate the Kennedys or dislike them.
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In attempting to be both sprawling and intimate, The Kennedys winds up in a narrative no-man's land.
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Definitive history The Kennedys is not. But most of the flaws explored here mostly make the characters seem human. The series credits wins as well as losses and sends most of its characters home on a positive note.
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With material this thin, the actors can only do a competent job of mimicry. Mimicry is about all you'll get.
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Ultimately, though, The Kennedys is a high-speed chase through 30 turbulent years, punctuated by impersonations, some better than others.
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Except for Tom Wilkinson, who's extraordinary as Joe, most of the actors, especially poor Katie Holmes, even if she at least looks like Jackie Kennedy, seem like furniture, too.
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The Kennedys has the look and feel of a 1980s miniseries, and it's not trying to be anything more exalted. Unlike "The Borgias" and "Camelot," its reach does not exceed its grasp.
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Instead, The Kennedys is blandly admiring when paying due respect, mildly cheesy when hauling out the trash, and understaged at every turn, the better for viewers to project their own fantasies onto it.
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It's well made and also at times unnecessarily cheesy.
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We come away with a new understanding of the extent of the Kennedys' dysfunction but without a sense of what made them special or of how they harnessed their talents. But what you see in Wilkinson's eyes--they're black holes, devouring everyone in sight--almost makes up for what's missing from the writing.
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It's ploddingly earnest when it isn't crudely scurrilous....There is some fine acting.
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The Kennedys has nothing much new to tell, and tells it over and over again.
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Owing more to its overambitious breadth of material than any overt political agenda, The Kennedys necessarily compresses, stretches, distorts and otherwise crams itself into a soap opera that is occasionally elegant and even moving near the end.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 13 out of 20
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Mixed: 4 out of 20
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Negative: 3 out of 20
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Jun 13, 2012
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Jul 24, 2018Very solid as a romantasize miniseries of the most family in the history of America. I watch lots of times and I'll keep watching them again.
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Oct 6, 2017