Catherine the Great (1996)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Good movie but grossly overrated

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

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.

If you like great period costumes and lavish settings you will like this shallow effort. If you want information about this Russian empress pick up a history book.Personally, I had never heard of this film before I ran into it on YouTube. Now I understand why. For one thing the casting is dreadful. Look, I know the white race has been rendered very unpopular lately by the reverse-racist "multiculturalists," but anybody who's ever seen a portrait of CTG knows she was a fair-skinned, blonde and blue-eyed woman of rather ample proportions (don't take my word for it; pick any biography with her picture on the cover). Therefore, I found the olive-skinned, dark-haired/eyed slim Catherine Zeta-Jones distracting and annoying. Somebody already mentioned Jeanne Moreau and Omar Shariff so I won't go over that again. Add to that the fact that the history is wobbly at best and you've got pretty much all you need to know to make up your mind if you want to invest time on this film.Forgettable.

This 100 minute version severely massacred an important period of history, omitting serious events and consequences, lacking in reasoning and rationale, short in character development and recreating history superficially and with little respect to timing and reality of events. The direction was insipid; the action was disjointed; the acting seemed unmotivated and uninspired; the musical score was more suited to a western; the screenplay was incoherent; suspense was linear; the story arc lacking. There were points left unresolved along with loose ends about what happened. Except for the costumes and sets, the film was mediocre at best and trivial at worst.

This historical drama has a most interesting story. Catherine The Great was a powerful women and she brought Russia into the modern age.Catherine Zeta-Jones is terrific in this film. She plays the part well expressing the independence and greatfulness of Catherine The Great. Highly recommended.

The great Catherine Zeta-Jones, before she became internationally famous, plays "Catherine the Great" in this 1995 film billed as an "A&E Original." It is filmed in what I will call an "antique" look, with a light olive-colored overtone to it and few brilliant colors. Still, it is very beautifully filmed and looks appropriate for the period, the middle 1700s. Zeta-Jones is marvelous as a very believable Catherine II.The film begins in 1745 Russia where, at the age of 15, Catherine was plucked from the Prussian (German) backwater to be wed to Grand Duke Peter, 17, the presumed heir to the throne. Her job was simple - to provide Peter with a son and eventual heir. Problem was, after 7 years Peter and Catherine had not consumated their marriage, and Peter seemed completely indifferent to his wife, but flirted with other ladies. Ultimately the empress orders a virile young courter to seduce Catherine and impregnate her, then Peter starts sleeping with her to make it seem the baby is theirs. In a scene to establish Catherine's true role, the newborn baby boy is taken away without the mother even seeing it.In 1757, at war with the Prussians, Catherine is persuaded to send a letter of support to the troops, but the letter is intercepted and the empress confronts her. Catherine asks the queen to send her back to Prussia, the empress says "no", then asks, "After I'm dead, will you seek power?" Catherine pauses only a couple of seconds and says, sternly, "Yes!" At a friend's suggestion that she and Peter could share power, she replies, "He loathes the sight of me", and she decides the only solution is to gain sole power.In close anticipation of death of the empress, politically-smart Catherine seduces a high-ranking general to gain military support for her. When the empress dies, Peter is proclaimed "Czar Peter III", and Catherine, his wife, isn't even allowed to speak to him. She is sent in seclusion to Peterhof. His reign lasts all of 6 months, when all military leaders in turn swear their allegiance to Catherine, then she is declared "Empress Catherine II" by the clergy and seizes the throne in 1762. Her stated mission was to "drag Russia out of her mideival stupor, into the modern world, and free 10 million serfs." In a word, a revolution. Peter was put out of his misery.The film continues with some account of the fighting with the Turks, her difficulty establishing a love relationship with the man she adored. History established that she became a "conscientious ruler", building schools and hospitals, promoting modern ideas, and attracted scholars from other countries. However, she did not follow her intent to free the serfs and instead promoted the interests of the upper classes. She died in 1796 at the age of 67.The film gives a great historical glimpse of an important chapter in Russian history, the coming to power of Catherine the Great, but I can only rate it "7" of 10. It is not as "engaging" as other great "historical" films I have seen recently, like "Longitude" and "Amistad", just to name two. Still, it is a very worthy film and Zeta-Jones becomes Catherine. In addition to Zeta-Jones, John Rhys-Davies is great as the scruffy revolutionary that eventually was beheaded. He played the loyal "sidekick" in "Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark."