Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #457 in VHS
• Released on: 2002-07-01
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: HiFi Sound, PAL
• Original language: English, Russian
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 127 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
"A film that will never be equalled for its spectacle and dramatic power" says the stirring trailer on this otherwise sparsely featured DVD. Taking the story of the Napoleonic Wars to Bonaparte's final defeat, Waterloo is an unofficial continuation to director Sergei Bondarchuk's own 70mm super-epic War and Peace (1968). The climactic battle of Waterloo is shown in the second half of the film and re-enacted with such stunning realism by a cast of around 20,000 extras that it looks like documentary footage from history itself (some 20 years later, Gettysburg, 1993, did the same for the American Civil War). Those who hailed the groundbreaking impact of Saving Private Ryan should see Bondarchuk's films, as for sheer scale and intensity--if not bloodiness--they make Spielberg's hit look like an amateur video. Without ever attempting a French accent, Rod Steiger makes a commanding Napoleon, Christopher Plummer a worthy adversary as Wellington, while the supporting cast led by Orson Welles, Jack Hawkins and Virginia McKenna is excellent. The DVD transfer is richly detailed and clear, though the print itself could have done with just a little restoration. Though dated, Abel Glance's Napoleon (1928) remains definitive for many, perhaps explaining why Stanley Kubrick eventually abandoned his planned Napoleon film, instead making the 18th Century period epic Barry Lyndon (1974). --Gary S.Dalkin

Synopsis
A star-studded historical record of the events surrounding the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, where Napoleon made his last desperate bid for ultimate power and glory.

Customer Reviews

Wellington and Waterloo
There are problems with this film. Firstly, it has an inadequate score. What it needs is a grand theme tune which recurs throughout, but it doesn't have one. Secondly, it has been clumsily edited together by what seems to have been a passing butcher. Both the editing and the lack of a decent soundtrack suggest that little attention was paid to artistic or aesthetic considerations once the actual filming had been completed. I would also say the quality of the acting is patchy, at best. Rod Steiger is actually quite good as Napoleon, managing to convey the multi-faceted nature of the man in spite of the occasional banalities of the script. Christopher Plummer looks alright as Wellington, but he never quite seems to inhabit the character or capture the substance and tone of the Iron Duke. Besides these two, the overall quality of the acting veers towards the wooden and the pedestrian (or, in the case of poor old Marshal Blucher, the absurd) - most particularly in the pre-battle scenes.

Where the film does score and does impress is in the colour, the scale and the choreography of the battle sequences themselves. Although even here our old friend the local butcher has been merrily at work, cutting great gobbets of the best and most important bits of the battle right out of the film. I also found the differences in approach and attitude between the (for the sake of simplicity) two contending armies interesting. The British seem to treat the whole thing as a kind of epic fox hunt which carries with it the strong possibility of a violent death. I thought that was probably about right. Things have changed much in our country, but the tendancy not to take life too seriously - even in the face of death - is one of the traditional British virtues. Napoleon, on the other hand, seems to see war as much more of a cold, strategic exercise - a science, if you like. Or a rather large game of chess. I found the contrast between these two different approaches to war and death interesting, but overall (and because of the aforementioned flaws) I would have to say the film is not a success.

Given that the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo falls on June 18th 2015, it is time that somebody took a second shot at filming it. I can even suggest a good, mainstream commercial director for the job - Ridley Scott.

One of Rod Steiger's most overlooked underappreciated performances....
In the tradition of the cinematic epics like Kubrick's "Spartacus" and Mann's "Fall of the Roman Empire," Bondarchuk's "Waterloo" succeeds in depicting Napoleon's desperate and final bid for power and glory. Steiger, no stranger to roles that have consistently challenged his acting ability, is quite good as the deposed French emperor who narrowly lost his final battle. Orson Welles' appearance as Louis XVIII, is far too brief but most welcome, and Plummer as Lord Wellington is a casting director's dream. Dino de Laurentiis has produced some questionable if not laughable films in the past "King Kong" (1976) and "Flash Gordon" (1980); however, "Waterloo" must be seen as one of his better efforts.

Many critics here at Amazon will applaud the many and well-orchestrated battle scenes--a case-in-point are the great aerial shots of the British "squares" organized against Marshall Ney (Dan O' Herlihy) and the French cavalry--and one can easily understand the film's strong visual appeal, but this opus succeeds in other ways too.

The non-battle scenes, for instance, like the ball before the battle which introduces us to Napoleon's nemesis, Wellington, and the scenes of Napoleon dictating letters to his secretaries, are thoughtful touches that broaden the scope of this highly entertaining film and successfully depict an aristocratically genteel milieu shattered by the cataclysm that is nineteenth-century warfare. On the surface, an era characterized by the gentility of the landed gentry and sportsmanlike conduct on the battlefield, later destroyed by the real brutalities and devastation of war.

Unlike too many directors who take liberties with depicting historical events (Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" quickly come to mind), Bondarchuck successfully and accurately depicts Napoleon in his decline--plagued with self-doubt, his irascible outbursts towards subordinates compounded by his ill-health (now confirmed by modern bio-historians as a combination of dysuria, piles, dermatitis, and stomach cancer) and his symptoms of grandiose delusion .

This is a Region 2 PAL encoded disc, so you will require a multi-region DVD player to view it. This film originally ran at 3 hours on its initial theatrical release in 1970, now cut down to 2 hours and eight minutes. It is a pity that we do not have the film in its entirety with Region 1 encoding as the director originally intended. Although this item is listed here as currently "unavailable," try purchasing it thru the AmazonUK site.

A Great Spetical of a movie
This film shows the battle of Waterloo to a fair extent if a little inaccuratly, but on a scale little scene even in these days of CGI. This film is the best potrayal of a Napoleonic battle ever filmed. Filled with some of the best lines in movie history this is a great film even if it's not 100% historcaly accurate.