Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

amexspam This movie does a better than average job of turning a Shakespeare play into a movie, but it doesn't succeed well as a movie. I thought the stage props, although minimalist, worked. The camera work was fine. With the exception of Heston, who seemed to be spend the first third of the movie smiling at some joke that rest of the cast weren't in on, I thought the acting was good. The characters were believable and their previous work on British TV served them well. The script was faithful to the play - actually too faithful - and this is why this was a so-so movie. Shakespeare was first and foremost an entertainer. He didn't write to please scholars, he wrote to amuse and tell a story to the masses. To do this he tried to use action sequences and clever plot devices, but most of all he tried to be a clever wordsmith. The problem with those that stay too faithful to the play is today's audiences don't speak as Elizabethans and the power of the words are lost. If Shakespeare was alive today he would update his script to reflect current English. This movie could easily have been edited down by 45 minutes and gained much by the editing. If Cleopatra makes hungry where she most satisfies, this film satisfies if we had been left hungry for more.

bkoganbing In Fraser Heston's forward to his father's Anthony And Cleopatra that is on the DVD that I just bought he mentions that his father was ever mindful of the mammoth Elizabeth Taylor film that only came out nine years earlier. He wanted to do something different and in that I felt that Charlton Heston failed. Not that this is not a good production, it most certainly is, but it did not break any new ground in that regard in the way that Laurence Olivier's Shakespeare films had done. Heston is a stalwart and resolute Mark Antony who for the first time in his pantheon of classical heroes on the screen is really quite the fool, but a fool for love as history has brought Antony down to us. He terribly underestimates Octavian played by John Castle who is best known as Prince Geoffrey of Anjou in The Lion In Winter. Heston marries Carmen Sevilla as Octavia and Castle thinks him and his following tied to the Caesar family. But Heston has a yen for Hildegarde Neil who is every bit as beguiling and seductive as Elizabeth Taylor or Claudette Colbert ever were as Cleopatra. The sea battle of Actium is always mentioned by historians as one of the twenty or so decisive battles in world history. What is shown here is that it need not be fought, but Heston spoiling for a fight and eager to dust off this young punk Octavian commits to a sea battle with inexperienced Egyptian sailors. That was his downfall or the beginning thereof.Speaking of which Actium is a nicely staged sequence and done for less money than you would think. Fraser Heston's narrative tells us how.Antony And Cleopatra is a fine production, not the best Shakespeare adaption, but still quite good. Look for John Castle as Octavian, he really has the character down perfectly.

Andre Raymond Heston managed to "open up" the play without losing the intimacy of the love story. The stately epic lives side by side with the intense love story. When the wounded Antony looks up to Cleopatra's tomb and cries "I am dying Egypte, dying!" I got it. The passions of such great leaders shake nations to their core.This one is about Heston, on the verge of losing his matinée idol status by 1974 but with the acting seasoning of more than two decades. He tackles Shakespeare and brings his own experiences of filming Julius Ceasar, El Cid and Ben Hur to the table.It is a labour of love indeed, but also one of determination. Bravo! Still waiting for the DVD with plenty of extras. This film deserves to be re-visited by scholars.

jer33_3 I am a huge Charlton Heston fan. He is without a doubt one of the greatest actors of all time, but what was he thinking when he made this movie. Normally if he made a bad movie I could blame it on the screenwriter or director, but in this case it's all him. The suckiness of this movie is all his fault. It proves that not even Heston can make a Shakespeare story interesting. I wasted 2 and a half hours of my life on this snooze fest and I'll never get that time back. This is by far THE WORST Heston movie that I've ever seen. If you are a Shakespeare fan maybe you'll find this movie entertaining, but if you're not don't waste your time, you'll regret it in the long run.