Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

jc-osms Perhaps the fact that I've a keen interest in history and not long ago read a biography of Wellington, drew me to nonetheless watch this big budget flop from the early 70's. Certainly in terms of scale it's a monumental achievement with the director's deployment of the huge numbers of combatants adding to the appreciation of the great generals themselves. With no computerised special effects in sight to artificially swell the numbers, the tableaux of blue versus red (and black) literally pops the eye and boggles the mind. While the bloodiness and brutality of the close combat scenes are not surprisingly toned down in deference to the censor, the cutaway final scene, where Wellington navigates his horse through the vast numbers of the dead, on a blood-soaked battlefield, tellingly conveys in complete silence the truth of Wellington's own words, quoted in the film, that there is only one thing more terrible than a battle lost and that is a battle won. The build up to the climactic battle is not unnaturally less engrossing, being a mixture of the French politics of the day, English societal mores and battle strategy, with a sprinkling of army humour to humanise and perhaps leaven somewhat the seriousness of everything else around it. The acting by the leads is variable, Rod Steiger, almost inevitably gives us The Method a- la-mode while Christopher Plummer somehow fails to convey the stature of Wellington while Orson Welles briefly bloats into view as the exiled French King Louie XXVII. This of course was the age of the anti-war movement which might explain the over-the-top (no pun intended) scene of a young English soldier screaming "Why are we killing each other" as he goes battle crazy as the film makes it point quite pointedly enough without the histrionics.

grendelkhan 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.

Jakester The film has terrible, near-fatal flaws, but if you love history you should watch it. Rod Steiger doesn't work remotely as Napoleon for me, I wouldn't follow this guy to cross the street, much less into battle. Still, any depiction of Napoleon is at least somewhat interesting, and worth watching. (I wonder if they could have gotten Brando for the role if they had tried. He needed the work. He was supposedly box office poison at the time, this was just before The Godfather. Maybe he was shooting Burn!, I don't know.) Christopher Plummer is very good as Wellington, somewhat one-dimensional, but capturing the essential thing - the steely confidence of the British aristocrat/warrior of the early 19th century. The best film portrayal of Wellington ever.For me, use of sound is 25 percent of a film, and the sound in this film is not good - not only the bad dubbing but the tin-eared, non-inspiring, non-moving use of music (except for the ball sequence). Ruinous, IMO. My favorite moment in the film is when Napoleon rides his white horse onto the field and Wellington watches from a distance through a telescope - watches a faint blur of glory racing along. I get the feeling that the actual moment, in 1815, must have been very much like this. But the sequence is hurt by the fact that the close-up of Steiger is staged, he's not really riding a horse, he apparently is riding some sort of mechanical contraption that is meant to mimic a horse's movements but really doesn't, and is filmed from the chest up. This contraption is used repeatedly in the movie. I realize the need for it - it allows close-ups of good actors who may not be good on horseback, and/or it allows for a steady shot before the invention of the Steadicam - but I file it under "seemed like a good idea at the time."The scenes of actual combat are OK, no better than that. If you want really good Napoleonic battle sequences see the Soviet version of War and Peace, also directed by Bondarchuk. He also does a ball sequence in that film that's excellent. He's also better at the small, intimate moments, as with Natasha's dance in the cabin. Dunno what happened to the guy in the two years between War and Peace and Waterloo. The single most interesting thing about this movie is that its box office failure caused Stanley Kubrick to lose his backing for a Napoleon film. What a tragedy. But then, as Napoleon well knew, the vagaries of fate can shatter the best-laid plans.

TerryDaniel 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.