Prismark10 Waterloo looks good with marvellous costumes and art direction. It looks epic with a cast of thousand at the battlefield. It just does not hang together well with a script that comes across as second rate.The film starts with Napoleon in exile on the island of Elba when he returns to France and gains control with the French army remaining loyal to him. Napoleon then leads his troops to the battle of Waterloo where he is on the edge of victory against the Duke of Wellington until Prussian troops arrive to help the British army defeat him.Director Sergey Bondarchuk has set out to make an epic but is really let down by the screenplay, maybe because his command of English let him down.Rod Steiger gives an interesting interpretation of Napoleon. Despite his lapses into hysterical method acting, I always found him to be a worthwhile character actor. Christopher Plummer's Napoleon was a bit one note, he really does come across as a series of quotes.

Mercury-4 I thought this was a good movie, and could have been a great movie.The bulk of the plot of the movie didn't do much for me. I wouldn't necessarily criticize it, I don't think it was bad, it just didn't interest me enough to get my attention.The actual battle of Waterloo though was stunning. This occupied, I don't know how much, a little less than half of the movie, I think 40% or so. But it was incredible. I've spent years playing table-top wargames so I feel like I know how battles work. The battle was really brought to life and all of the details were very clear and vivid. The glory and the horror of battle were brought to life, more than any other battle scene I can think of off hand. There is one moment as an example (I'm going to be a little vague so this doesn't turn into a spoiler) where cavalry charges infantry which is unexpectedly formed into squares. This would be a bad position for cavalry of this era, which you know if you've studied Napoleonic warfare, but the problematic nature of it was immediately clear visually as you watched. I loved this.But to me, the movie is ruined, or kept from greatness anyway, by Steiger. He's a great actor, but he didn't feel like Napoleon to me at all. Napoleon was an intensely charismatic man. Steiger is a -tough- man, an imposing man, but I wouldn't call him charismatic at all. And he feels very American to me.In the Woody Allen movie Love and Death, there is a comic caricature of Napoleon. This version is flamboyant, aware of his own grandeur, believing in his own grandeur (rather like Beethoven). Although the character is comical, I think it is probably much closer to the reality of Napoleon. Closer to my image of him anyway. Ironically Napoleon's body double in that movie, who is intentionally meant to be the opposite of the real Napoleon (crude, lacking style, with a bit of a New Jersey accent), reminded me more of Steiger than Steiger did of Napoleon.Maybe it's my image of Napoleon which is flawed, but I think considering what he did on sheer force of personality, that Napoleon would have felt like a very flamboyant person in person.

Neil Welch One has to admit that director Sergey Bondarchuk has very impressively marshalled the resources necessary, and then planned and used them in recreating the battle of Waterloo - the epic scale of the battle is all over the screen.Unfortunately, the film doesn't convey the progress of the battle with coherence in the way that, say, Zulu does. And the battle is edited together from some shots which are beautifully captured in the camera and some which are plainly shambolic.And once one moves away from the battle, things go further downhill. The dubbing for many of the non-English speaking cast is very noticeable, much of the acting is not very good, and Rod Steiger's mannered histrionics as Napoleon are simply awful.I thought this film was not very good at all.

eamonnoriordan-273-283716 I saw this movie on its release in 1970 and was hugely impressed by all aspects of how it recreated the battle of Waterloo and how close it stuck to the original facts , its use of the original statements of Napoleon and Wellington and of course the thrilling cavalry charges which illustrated the shock and awe that someone facing such a charge must have felt .A few years later I spent a week on the site of the battlefield staying in a hotel just behind Wellington's tree from where he conducted most of the battle . During this time I walked every area of the battle , visited Hugomont and saw the evocative graves of the handful of french soldiers who managed to get over the walls and who were buried where they fell . The battle field has been preserved intact and one is struck by the closeness and intimacy of the conflict where Napoleon and Wellington stood on opposite ridges and were visible to each other at all times during the battle .As I am from Ireland I found it interesting to discover that the horses of Napoleon ( called Marengo ) and Wellington ( Copenhagen ) at Waterloo were bred in Co. Wexford at a place called Wellington Bridge and that in fact the two horses were half brothers ! I watched the DVD for the first time in 40 years last night and was struck by two things , how close the movie was to the actual topography of the real Waterloo , La Haye Sainte etc. and how miscast Christopher Plummer was .I admire Plummer and have followed his career but now in hindsight I feel he was too young for the part of Wellington particularly against such a strong force that was Rod Steiger's Napoleon . Plummer came across as effete and campy and his main forte seemed to be confined to delivering the witty quips and put downs used by Wellington which in no way did justice to the real Wellington whereas in contrast Steiger nailed the role of Napoleon .In fact I feel that Plummer could now play Wellington and do him justice much better at his present age ! I also feel that the over dramatic use of the display of arrayed cannon when the Old Guard was invited to surrender was unnecessary and completely over the top as the moment itself was both pitiful and glorious enough without embellishment . The simple French monument on the field of Waterloo today to the Old Guard is by far the most simple and moving of all the battle field's many monuments .Those criticisms aside I enjoyed the movie and would watch it again , it has aged well and if you want to know about ancient battles then this is the best battle movie of all time .