Cleopatra (1999)
Cleopatra, the famed Egyptian Queen born in 69 B.C., is shown to have been brought by Roman ruler Julius Caesar at age 18. Caesar becomes sexually obsessed by the 18 year old queen, beds her, and eventually has a son by her. However, his Roman followers and his wife are not pleased by the union. In fact, as Caesar has only a daughter by his wife, he had picked Octavian as his successor. The out-of-wedlock son of Cleopatra is seen to be a threat to his future leadership. Thus Brutus and other Roman legislators plot the assassination of Caesar. Caesar's loyal general, Marc Antony, and Octavian then divide up the Roman empire. Antony takes Egypt and soon takes up the affair with Cleopatra. However, Octavian soon launches an attack on Antony and ultimately defeats and mortally wounds him. Rather than permitting herself to be humiliated by Octavian, Cleopatra sends her son away to India and she commits suicide by permitting the deadly asp to bite her.
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Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.
The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
The first 5 minutes of this movie are incredible. Technically, it's top notch, the sets and costumes are luxuriant, and this is a Must Have for Dalton fans; Caesar never looked (or sounded) so good, striding into Alexandria with so much ego and charisma. Unfortunately, we all know what happens to Caesar, and it happens about halfway through this thing. Then we're left with Cleopatra, the most insufferable lead ever, due in part to terrible acting and the other part to terrible characterization. She does little but whine and pout like a petulant teenager, and is useless for addressing any of a Queen's duties. She can't help this movie any more than her similarly poorly-cast sister Arsinoe, or Billy Zane's unsympathetic Marc Antony. Everyone seems to realize that Caesar is too hard an act to follow, but they do try. The results are mediocre to good in places.However, it's totally worth the watch and the buy for the first hour, which is beautiful, sexy, and violent with an engaging story. And personally I never tire of watching Tim Dalton do what he does best: Upstage everyone and make out with untalented co-stars.
The DVD version consists of 2 episodes, the parricide of Caesar being the juncture. In addition, the language was Spanish without subtitles. Hence, it's hard for me to review in depth this movie because because i didn't understand what was said.Cleopatra being an historic icon, the part is very difficult and i found that for a newcomer, Leonor Varela just plays fine. She is strong-willed but also a very supportive, tender soul mate. Thimothy Dalton as Caesar is perfect and their romance is the main thing of the first episode. So, it is not really a documentary, nor a peplum but a great love story.After the parricide, a new lover comes (Marc-Antoine) but the flavor is gone: we remember always our first love. So, i found the second episode dull and their tragic fate isn't told powerfully.Nonetheless, the production is luxurious: the sets are big, tastefully decorated; the Moroccan live location exotic and the wardrobes splendid. The producers have a lot of money for sure, but they spend nothing on the special effects. They are so poor (blue screens, ships, Sphinx) that it's funny.Finally, I would like very much to hear it in french or English to make a definitive opinion about this two movies.
Hi there ! I just finished watching this movie and in my opinion was very well done in some parts it even topped the 1963 version of Mankiewicz's film. The sets were pretty well made the costumes the same and the dialog was in no way staggering and as for the plot except for a few minor inconsistencies - one of them shown in the Goofs section- was just as the storyline in no way boring. Now with all these having been said i can't figure out for the life in me why so many people don't "agree" with this movie ? Is it because it is a remake and the fact that remakes are generally considered bad ? Why does a remake always have to be considered a - pardon the expression- shitty work ? This mentality seems to have stuck with certain people along the years and it's wrong. Anyway i found this movie - for a TV movie it really is something- to be very good so good that it kept me glued to the screen for the entire 3 hours. And one other thing the actors fit their roles perfectly and took them seriously. I also saw a review that complained about the running time. People, it's an epic it takes a long time to unfold the story of historical events of such proportions, it's supposed to last long. This is not your average slash-and-dash-shoot'em-up Friday-night-video. It takes a lot more time to tell the story of an epic movie than it does that of an action flick. Details have to be considered, historical accounts, facts, etc. I give the movie a 9/10 mostly because of how the main characters played throughout the entire picture and last but not least because someone out there like Frank Roddam had the balls to make a remake of the 1963 version that didn't pale to it and in many ways live up to its significance by making it even better. An on one last note this is the only movie that i've seen here on IMDb that only had 3 THREE goofs in the Goofs section. That ought account for something. Whatever that something is, i think we can all figure it out on our own. Peace all !
This movie was pretty good, but it did get somewhat boring towards the end. I almost fell asleep.The writing was uninspired and in places really bad. But I am so familiar with the two Shakespeare plays based on the same historical events, I may be biased. During Marc Antony's speech to the crowd at Julius Caesar's death I couldn't help but compare it to the mesmerizing speech made in the movie "Julius Caesar" staring Marlon Brando. I also had a problem with the way the movie portrayed Octavian and I don't think the problem was Rupert Graves. It was the script. In a couple scenes they show Octavian to be a coward. Which, considering he became Rome's greatest Emperor, Augustus Caesar, I believe that Octavian was probably a lot of things but coward was definitely not one of them. I almost think they decided to make him cowardly so Marc Antony wouldn't look so whipped.Anyway, this was a nice romance style movie and I liked the pretty colorful sets.