It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

The more interesting aspect of 'Rasputin' is not so much the history it portrays, but the ambiguity of it. Are we, as an audience, meant to feel sympathetic towards Rasputin? Towards the Romanovs? The movie gives no clear answers.Rickman portrays Rasputin in a way that the question of whether he was a true holy man or merely a charlatan is never truly answered. On the one hand, we have Stolypin's opinion of Rasputin's "powers" as little more than hypnotism and suggestion, and on the other we have Alexei—who could be considered an unreliable narrator—who admires and believes in Rasputin's "magic." Rickman, meanwhile, plays Rasputin as a man who believes strongly, who may just be convinced that he does have healing powers—but who may just be a poor, deluded fool.McKellen, meanwhile, does a masterful job of portraying Nicholas II as neither cloyingly sympathetic not narrow-mindedly unsympathetic. His Nicholas II is not a likable man, but we can see his humanity and his faults, and how these things blind him to his mismanagement of the country. He is not a black and white portrayal, but grey.In a way, 'Rasputin' (saddled with a most unfortunate subtitle) is more about religion than history or politics. Its main theme is its characters passionate adherence to their religion: Rasputin who wants to see and experience miracles and apparitions, Nicholas II and Alexei who believe God has made them unquestionable kings, and Alexandra who allows her faith to blind her to the dangers of placing too much power and confidence on the "holy man" who "cures" her son. It is this aspect of the movie that makes it interesting, and which gives it its power. It would have been easy to make yet another film in which either Rasputin or the Romanovs are made to look like either blameless saints or black hearted villains, but 'Rasputin' (for the most part) chooses to portray its characters as flawed, human creatures.Rickman, perhaps, goes a tad bit overboard on the melodrama and histrionics (and I greatly disliked the strip of bright light over his eyes as some kind of dramatization of either madness or holiness), but he brings a real sense of despair and anguish to Rasputin's eventual downfall, of his apparent loss of faith as Alexandra, in turn, loses faith in him. McKellen's in the more understated role, and a great treat to watch. His role may not be as dramatic, but it is more subtly nuanced.

Rasputin is one of history's most colorful figures of all time,but this movie is trash.too dramatic.so this make this movie bad.and terrible songs.this movie is overrated like Titanic.garbage i call it.Rasputin healing powers ah common think real it's all pointless and fantasy.don't believe everything like Charles Foster Kane said. In 1910s Russia, Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra find their son Alexei, sole heir to the Romanov dynasty, suffering from hemophilia and conventional medicine failing to help him. Alexandra looks into finding holistic treatment and finds Father Grigori Rasputin, a destitute monk who claims he had a vision from the Virgin Mary telling him that the Tsar needed him.fails a movie.

The opening titles allege that this movie is based on fact. Well, yes, it is - sort of - but it could only at best be described as a strait-jacketed version, stripped down to the bare bones. No meat on this baby! Good acting, especially from Alan Rickman in the title role but SO MANY real-life characters missing and so many incidents leap-frogged over. The story of the meddlesome monk whose powers to heal the haemophiliac tsarevich disastrously influenced the decision-making of Nicholas and Alexandra is monumental in its tragedy but alas, this version cannot even be accorded the Reader's Digest seal of respectable abridgement. One gets the feeling that this may very well have been intended as a more fully-fleshed version of events but all the juices and flavors have been drained out to accommodate the lowest common denominator in viewership. Good production values and good performances cannot hide the contrived scenes that unfold with throwaway dialog, introducing world-shaking events in the history of Russia only to instantly drop them. This is a runaway train with no stops for the viewer to absorb the historical scenery. So much background information is missing. So little explanation is given for the sequence of events that brought about the fall of the Romanovs. And was Rasputin really a mind-reader??? Gimme a break! Even though Rasputin is the focus of the movie the story is that of the Romanov family and they deserve a much deeper and sympathetic evaluation than this Cliff Notes special. An abysmally wasted opportunity that merely skims the surface of things and insults the viewer's intelligence.

Alan Rickman really kicks it. He did a quite incredibly good job.Could you want another Rasputin? Excellent acting. He combines that opposition of orgy and foreseeing in a way you cannot help but think this ambivalence is like two sides of the same coin.