Waterloo (1971) with Rod Steiger
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DVD: Region Code 0Movie Reviews of Waterloo (1971) with Rod Steiger
Movie Review: A TRULY EPIC FILM.........
Summary: 5 Stars
Director Sergei Bandarchuk recreates the 1815 battle of Waterloo. The phrase 'They just don't make 'em like that anymore' immediately comes to mind. You will never see another film made on this scale again with literally a 'cast of thousands' of uniformed soldiers and extras. Vast in scope. It will all be CGI from now on, which can be very good, but will never equal this kind of huge undertaking. The only scene's that can top these are from Russian director Sergei Bondarchuk's previous, even more epic film, War and Peace. I think I can remember reading in Guiness Book of World Records one time that he used 100,000 men from the Russian Army to recreate the 1812 battle of Borodino in what may be, adjusted for inflation, the most expensive film in history. I understand he again used Russian Army soldiers as extras for this film.
This is a film that deserves a top notch remastering into HD. This version is good and well worth watching but you will understand what I am saying because of the tremendous amount of detail present in the film that just does not fully come across in this transfer.
I thought Christopher Plummer played Wellington to perfection as far as everything I have ever read about him and his actions during the battle. Rod Stieger is great as Napoleon with all of his personal quirks. All of the other actors seemed well cast.
I don't know if it's true that there is a longer version or not but a few early scenes do seem rather disjointed such as the part where Napoleon has just won the battle of Ligny. There is absolutely no lead in for the viewer and virtually no developement of the character of the Prussian Marshall Blucher. If you had never read on the subject you would be completely lost. Some of the scenes perfectly recreate famous paintings of the battle I have seen such as the charge of the Scot's Grey's and the attack of Napoleons 'Old Guard'. The attention to detail is superb.
This version has one problem and that is the subtitles will not turn off once you have turned them on, so don't do it. The English subtitles are completely rediculous, if you actually read them, they are so far off from what is actually being said to be a complete joke. Otherwise, it's Chinese characters, which are at least less distracting than the assinine and distracting English one's. How this is the only version available is beyond me.
So do yourself a favor and check out this great film.
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