Simply Perfect

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Without a doubt this is the greatest historic battle film ever made. The effort that went in to this film is unprecedented. I watched this when I was young and I was so in awe of the film that I developed a life long love of history. These days when it is possible to portray battle scenes with computer graphics we will never understand how much effort went in to drafting in an entire Russian division and kitting them out in Napoleonic uniforms.But its not just the huge cavalry charges and carefully researched accuracy of the film that impresses. Christopher Plumber and Rod Steiger both put in excellent performances as Wellington and Napoleon. This film should clearly have scooped the Oscars, why it didn't we will never understand.

Sergey Bondarchuk knew how to make epic war films - his War And Peace is a real masterpiece of grand scale battle scenes, deep emotional ups and downs, real psychologies, decent camera work and naked nerve tension. Here, he repeated his winning formula, but in some ways, he failed to make it a perfect war movie. Why did it happen? Since I am not a movie critic, but merely a movie fan, I can draw my conclusions on several bases - 1. The movie is too long at times and has a bad tendency to drag, which makes it a bit painful to endure. 2. There are obvious goofs and errors in editing, very clear and evident, which rob us of bigger enjoyment. 3. Some parts are performed very shallow and not so deeply convincing. Yeah, even the main characters do suffer some over-play syndrome. 4. The ideas are repeated shamelessly from War And Peace - it is very clear and obvious. All of that add to a lesser rating of a somewhat faulty but still good movie

I first saw Waterloo as a child, while staying in a hotel on vacation. Even at that young age, I found the movie fascinating, with electrifying performances and hypnotic battle scenes. I did have a lot of trouble understanding the strategy, which isn't very well conveyed to the neophyte. One thing I did notice was that it seemed to take forever.I later bought the film on VHS and enjoyed it far more, having studied more history and having been given a better illustration of the battle and its components via Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series of novels. What stands out even more now are the tremendous performances of Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer, especially Steiger. Steiger grabs your attention and holds it there and even makes you secretly hope he can pull things out, given that he presents such an inspiring presence. Plummer isn't quite as electrifying, but he does command his space, but his egotistical and decidedly elitist air doesn't exactly endear Wellington as a hero. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the characters are fairly one note, with the odd moment here or there (like Ponsonby's story of his father and his snuff). Orson Welles does convey the corruption of the Bourbons and you aren't sad to see him conclude his cameo. However, the film succeeds in making characters out of the armies themselves, and the soldiers in the thick of things. You can see the fear and determination etched on their faces and you can see the cost of the battle in the bodies strewn about. For all of the shots of glory, there are plenty of horror.In the end, the film is less about characters as it is about two opposing forces; and, in that, it succeeds tremendously. It certainly helps to have a primer of the battle's history on hand to follow the sequence of events and their importance, but it is not strictly necessary. You do need to settle in, as it is a long ride, though with a lot of interesting sights along the way.

My third viewing of Waterloo was probably the best viewing of the film I had had.It appears this film gets slightly better every time it is seen.This really was one of the last huge battle epics that came from the 60's and early 70's. Rod Steiger plays Napoleon pretty well but it goes from French to English to American apart from that good portrayal of the trumped up little Frenchmen. The director Sergie Bondarchuk had filmed a similar film to this a year before called War and Peace.I see this as an unofficial sequel to War and Peace as it battles and ball room dances are similar in style. I was very happy to see Spaghetti Western legend in this film Gianni Garko who stared as Sartana the gambling gun slinger in countless films.Al so spotted in this film was Coronation Streets Fred Elliot but was refrained from saying "I want meat,I say I want meat.This film time is comfortable at roughly around 2 hours.A great score as well by Nino Rota who previously had scored Visconti's "The Leopard and later went on to score "The Godfather". Orson Welles is all so in this film for about film minutes if you don't know who he is well his that morbidly obese character who plays Louis XVIII with some what of a British accent. I would love to have seen this film on the big screen i only hope one day it comes out in some poky art house cinema.