ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

ThedevilChoose 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.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

nipny The battle scenes in this movie are incredible. In one scene they show so accurately how the British infantry formed squares to fend off a French cavalry attack. My only criticism of the movie is they did so much to create these great battle scenes but yet when they showed central characters on horseback it was so completely obvious they weren't on horses and in front of a green screen. I know the moview was made in 1970 but it's almost comical to watch. Overall a great movie though.

Qiang Xu The image of General Robert Lee keeps popping into my mind when I was watching Emperor Napoleon in Waterloo (1970).Both men were fighting for a lost cause. Both battles were the high watermark of the two tragic characters.Both Lee and Napoleon were occupying the low area of the battleground, and were determined to wipe out their rivals on the high ground. Both failed.Napoleon didn't get one third of his force under Grouchy, which he needs badly to push Wellington off balance. Lee didn't get the intelligence of General Meade's Army in time, without the help from his cavalry commander, General Stuart.One thing is for sure, the battle scenes in Waterloo (1970) are much more magnificent than those in Gettysburg (1993).

Cormac Kelly A total of 16,000 soldiers of the Soviet army where employed to play the armies of Napoleon, Wellington, and Blucher in Sergei Bondarchuck's epic about the final act of Napoleon Bonaparte's rule. Filmed in the Ukraine this film has a amazing attention to meticulous detail. The film wows with its wide shots of massive formations of soldiers marching in battle. It also has an outstanding cast with Rod Stieger as Napoleon, Christopher Plummer as Wellington, and an elderly Orson Welles as Louis XVII. All of whom do a commendable job. I highly recommend this film to anyone who anyone in search of a historical film.

Robert J. Maxwell Napoleon (Steiger) escapes from exile in Elba, returns to France, defeats some enemies, and is himself defeated once and for all by Wellington (Plummer) at Waterloo in Belgium.I have no idea how closely this movie follows the historical event, never having been a Napoleon freak, but Rod Steiger is certainly different from David's heroic portrait, pointing the way to victory atop that fiery horse. (Cf., the ads for Napoleon brandy.) Napoleon's early victory's were behind him. He was fifteen years older now and had a bad case of the trots.Steiger makes him extremely gloomy, like that character in the Peanuts comic strips that walks around under a little cloud. What suffering. Steiger gives Napoleon two modes of speaking -- an ear-shattering shout or a hoarse hiss.His opposite number, the Duke of Wellington, who massacres the French troops with the aid of the Prussians, is played by Plummer as aristocratic, cool, and ironic. Wellington won more than the battle. He won more memorials than Napoleon. Wellington not only had a tasty dish of pastry-wrapped roast beef named after him, but a boot as well. What did Napoleon get? A high-calorie pastry. Well, come to think of it, there's that brandy, so maybe the battle was Wellington's but the memorials are a tie.The first hour of the movie shows us the character and circumstances of the two leaders. The handsome Wellington dances around in a palace, resplendent in crimson frock, making wisecracks, while Napoleon broods in drab gray, in pain, alone, carrying on with himself in an interior monologue. There is a brief appearance by a bloated Orson Welles as Louis XVIII. It's the high spot of the film because Welles treats the role as a joke. Otherwise humor is totally lacking.The second hour is -- well, you have never seen so many extras, whether or not half of them may have been mannequins, and no CGIs either. The battle is a confusing and muddy mess. BANG. BOOM. It goes on and on, obscured by smoke and a sudden storm. There are dead bodies in red and blue all over the vast landscape. It's impossible to follow the details of the engagement but easy enough to grasp the overall picture.Sergei Bondarchuk is quick to use crane and helicopter shots to capture all the money that was spent on the production. It must have cost as much as the original battle itself. But some of the shots are bizarre. An aide whispers something in Steiger's ear and there is a cut to an enormous close up of one -- just one -- of Steiger's eyeballs. The overall impression is that the direction was done by an amateur with an awful big budget.I'm recommending it though. Too many college students don't know who Napoleon was. If they've heard the name at all, it's been in the expression "Napoleonic complex." So I advise all high school kids to watch it. Look at the funny hats they wore.