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The World Moves On may very well have been more enthralling and meaningful for audiences in 1934, but modern audiences may find it a bit less engaging. That doesn't apply to all of the film, however, for there are a couple of combat scenes that are quite good. Especially for the period, these sequences don't flinch from showing the brutality and cruelty of war; indeed, the film has an anti-war slant that many modern viewers will find refreshing. Unfortunately, the segments that surround the battle scenes are rather more mundane. World tries for an epic feel, spanning generations and continents as it does, but its attempts at sweep and grandeur come across as artificial and forced. The screenplay labors mightily, but its all effort with no real result: the characters are too shallow and the situations too manufactured to ring true. John Ford's direction is hit or miss; the battle scenes show real flair, but it's difficult to know how much is footage from Wooden Crosses and how much is Ford himself. Lovely Madeleine Carroll does well with an underwritten part, and Franchot Tone has some very fine moments; regrettably, there are also several moments of Stepin Fetchit's now-offensive racist humor.