DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Armand for accuracy and for acting. for care for details and music. sure, for Maximilien Schell in one of his greatest roles. a film like a history lesson, who escapes from artistic temptation effects for present a character and his period, the huge pieces of a work and the life as alive parable. a film about transition and ambitions.and about lessons of a manner to transform a society. far to be a pink picture, it is a good example about the force of accuracy.great cast, wise script. a show and little more. because it present more than a page of Russian history but a portrait of a struggle. a seductive mini-series. and a great occasion for discover the freshness of history air history.

oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- 1986, Russia at the dawn of the Eighteenth century --- a vast, chilling mysterious land, mostly medieval. A country led by a man whose curious, questioning spirit is eager to learn all that is new and Western. Peter was a monarch who brings his feudal country into the modern world. The power plays, love affairs and international intrigues are brought to life by a stellar cast, featuring Oscar winners. Peter the Great was a shrewd Czar and visionary, statesman, sailor, blacksmith, shipbuilder and military leader. He's a husband and a father. He's a man who dared to dream the impossible dream and succeeded in the greatest measure.*Special Stars- Maximilian Schell, Vanessa Redgrave, Omar Shariff with cameos from, Sir Laurence Olivier, Trevor Howard, and Elke Summers.*Theme- Russia is complicated and eastern.*Based on- Russian history *Trivia/location/goofs- From a NBC TV miniseries. This film was produced with the assistance of the Soviet government. The shooting locations were all in Russia and the real royal, church, and palaces interior shooting scenes were in historical places. The locations, weather, and costumes were extravagant and rich to enjoy. The history facts in this film overused due to 'dramatic license'.*Emotion- The editing of this week long many episodes miniseries into a feature film makes it somewhat boring for the viewer to sit through. There are too many long boring opening establishing shots of lead characters walking into frame at historic places. While some of that is tolerable, sometimes this film is nothing more that a Russian travelogue instead of a narrative feature film. The factual period history is questionable. It's a western point-of-view on a very foreign eastern subject matter and it is very liberally biased. I found myself yearning to see the next Oscar winner to pop-up in scenes or looking to enjoy the costumed battle scenes. The narrative seems to get lost in the beauty shots and landscape views. The huge cast of story characters and the many decade story caused a loss of interest in all of them except the lead roles, so the character nuances of the plot script was too confusing to keep straight in your mind. I found myself feeling like I was watching paint dry and that's a shame for such an expensive film project. Other film project of this size have done it much better like; 'Gone with the Wind' 'Laurence of Arabia', 'Citizen Kane' and 'The Godfather'.

jdouglas-16 I found this TV min-series to be absolutely superb. The acting by the international cast was excellent and the costumes seemed like they belonged to the time period. It is a great, sweeping story about one of the greatest monarchs of all time and this film does not disappoint. The filming in Russia I think made the movie all that much more convincing.It may be subject to the criticism that it is not completely historically accurate, but then the point of the mini-series is to entertain with a delightful story and I think it is understood that some freedom to re-write the history is acceptable. The main outline is correct and the characters look and act the part well.I do not make this rating lightly. I have it on a VHS tape I bought years ago and still watch it often. I highly recommend it. Find it on the Internet and buy it. That's my recommendation.

Thomas Diemer The movie is fantastic -great plot, superb acting and characterization, fantastic sets, costumes and music. BUT It is historically very inaccurate - Peter suffered from bouts of temporary insanity. Far from betraying him his first wife was madly in love with him and bombarded him with love letters througout his European tours. Also ironically (remember Omar Sharif's comment on Peter being strong and Ivan weak) most of Peter's twenty something children died in infancy - Ivan produced a flock of children and grandchildren.