Peter the Great (1986)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The production of this series is top notch and a treat. The sets, the snow, the costumes, everything is brilliant.The casting and acting are respectable as well, although I'd have liked to see a taller, fitter Peter. At one point an out of shape Schell huffs while liting an axe then wields it with the wrong hand. Peter, always described as tall, strong and with boundless energy, would disapprove.What truly lets down this series however is the scriptwriting. Here you have a great story, a stellar cast, and all the right ingredients, but the screenplay is a series of shockingly fake sounding set pieces. It's just a mystery to me with all the nice things this movie has to offer why they couldnt have come up with a better script. After the battle of Poltava, Menshikov says to Peter, "You have saved Moscow" and Peter says, "We have secured our access to the sea". Really? You're gonna announce the conclusions of a battle you just fought like you wrote a term paper? This sort of thing abounds in the series. Another example is the highly unnecessary and historically doubtful "Peter in Newton's lab" scene. It's like their research dug up that Newton was around at the same time Peter was in England, and hey let's have them meet. Then it's also the struggle between keeping things chronological yet interesting, which kinda falls flat. Peter talks about St. Petersburg from a rather early age, and builds it only towards the end of the movie. It's never really shown. That is like one of his most interesting achievements and the screenplay pays it the usual lip service.This could have been so much better.

Nobody mentioned in their reviews that the wonderful Lilli Palmer played Natalia, the mother of Peter the Great, which gave her a golden globe nomination for best support, though she died before the TV miniseries aired on TV... Yes this was her last performance after a Forty year career in films TV and theater around the world.. She is terrific and her last scene, her death scene, is particularly poignant.. There has been criticism that the miniseries is not historically correct. OK but its a miniseries, not a serious documentary and so poetic justice is expected and acceptable. They did get the idea of who Peter was and what he did for Russia and that is what is most important. A wonderful cast in this lavish production and a marvelous chance to see the still beautiful Miss Palmer in her last role, even though she was already apparently dying of cancer and quite ill during the shoot. IT is a shame she did not live to see her nomination, which she lost.

Russia, the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century. Tzar Peter, much ahead of his times, attempts at turning his country into the modern world. However, it is a real hardship to achieve the goals. He has to cope with conspiracies, even in his own family, and the objection from the church and the mob. That's more or less a brief summary of the mini series Peter the Great. Although the movie entails several serious historical inaccuracies, a viewer does get a general picture of the Russia of that time, of tzar Peter and his genius. What is more, it is very good as a movie.Any director has the right to change something in history, interpret it in his/her own way. That is no problem. The real distortion comes when there is a travesty of the times and of historic figures. But that is out of question when applied to this movie.The action is great! The mini series, though quite long, is made in such a way that once you start watching it, you will watch it till the end. The director's main focus is the figure of tzar Peter, his life, his goals, his dreams for Russia, and his disappointments. Looking from this perspective, the movie is a masterpiece, highly underrated. In most of the scenes with Peter, one can follow his thoughts, his experience with ruling, his goals that are hopelessly destroyed by the patriarchs, who say that Peter lost his soul, the blind mob, and, most tragically, his son Alexis. I can't forget the scene when Peter says "I've lost my son. He doesn't love me" The tzar Peter is beautifully portrayed by two actors: young Jan Niklas, really worth noticing, and Maximilian Schell, and undoubtable talent, not only as an actor but as a director too (see for instance his Erste Liebe).Other cast are also very, very good. Lawrence Olivier as the English king, William of Orange, Trevor Howard as Sir Isaac Newton (consider Peter's memorable meeting with Sir Newton); Ursula Andress as Athalie, and especially, Vanessa Redgrave as Peter's rebellious sister Sophia. She plays equally well as in another Russian epic, Young Catherine (1991) by Michael Anderson with Julia Ormond in the main role. I want to make one more notice about the movie. There are a lot of scenes that the movie is worth watching for. But especially, watch the part that shows Peter's journey to Europe. Marvin J. Chomsky wonderfully presents a huge contrast between the Europe of that time and Russia. Then, you will definitely understand his goals...Peter the Great is a Russian epic that is highly underrated and seriously forgotten. The movie is very well made, it gives a clear picture of that reality, and a memorable interpretation of Peter's life. The whole story proves one sad fact very clearly:Great people are usually GREAT after their death! Isn't that an irony of human fate?

(Some historical spoilers, lest the unwary are taken in by this serial!) I first saw this on BBC1 in 1987, shortly before beginning my doctoral research on the historical iconography of the Petrine era, and it stood me in good stead as an unintentionally comic point of reference. Nikolai I, with his cult of Official Nationality and near-deification of Peter, would have *loved* this series; this viewer, however...Chronology, geography and characters are wilfully distorted, sometimes to comic effect. General Gordon, who strangely appears *without* an Aberdeenshire accent, gets to bed a Swedish belle - loosely based on Aurora von Königsmarck - and fight at Narva several years *after* his death. Peter picks up his future second wife at Azov, instead of in Peterburg after the Baltic campaigns. Tsarevich Aleksei, actually an 8 year old, is shown as a grown man at the time of the execution of the Strel'tsy and the banishment of his mother! But more often than not, the distortions are to show Peter in the best light possible. The reforming Regent Sof'ya and her highly Westernised, intellectual adviser Golitsyn are shown as conspiratorial opponents of change. (The casting of Vanessa Redgrave as Sof'ya is amusing if you know the portraits of the real Sof'ya, a decidedly plump young woman.) Evdokiya, Peter's harmless first wife, is depicted as a treacherous, frigid shrew. Tsarevich Aleksei - scholarly, consumptive, abused Aleksei - is played by Boris Plotnikov (who was superb as the Christ-like partisan hero of 'The Ascent' - did he need hard currency so badly to appear in this?) as a geeky, reactionary schemer with a terrible haircut. (Aleksei was actually strikingly handsome, with huge brown eyes and long dark curls.) Meanwhile, the corrupt, power-hungry Menshikov and duplicitous, torturing Tolstoi are depicted as lovable rogues, and Marta/Ekaterina as decidedly wholesome... The tough (and prematurely balding) young Swedish soldier-king Carl XII, who resembled a shorter Max von Sydow, is depicted as a vaguely camp cherub with golden curls. All stuff which would have gone down well with Nikolai I-era or Soviet historiography, but not with modern scholars in Western Europe or Russia.The series leaves a nasty taste with its automatic demonisation of anyone who tried to resist Peter: "blaming the victim" writ large. It even tries to enlist viewers' sympathy for him while he's watching his own son being tortured! The script is also clichéd and awkward ("I'll drag you kicking and screaming into the modern world!" says Peter on one occasion). Characters are depicted wandering around in traditional dress long after the Court had been dragooned into Western clothes, and there is no depiction of 'Sankt-Peterburg' itself, although it is talked about.If you have a warped and twisted sense of humour, this series is actually very funny, like 'Blackadder' played by a cast who don't realise it's a comedy. That's why I'm giving it 3/10, instead of just 1 - for black humour value. I had to laugh at it, or I'd have thrown a brick through the TV. The BBC's own, much lower-budget production, 'Peter in Paradise' (2003), is superior, as is the 1996 Russian film 'Tsarevich Aleksei', based on Merezhkovskii's novel.