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the audience applauded

As Good As It Gets

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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.

The movie is fantastic -great plot, superb acting and characterization, fantastic sets, costumes and music. BUT It is historically very inaccurate - Peter suffered from bouts of temporary insanity. Far from betraying him his first wife was madly in love with him and bombarded him with love letters througout his European tours. Also ironically (remember Omar Sharif's comment on Peter being strong and Ivan weak) most of Peter's twenty something children died in infancy - Ivan produced a flock of children and grandchildren.

Peter the Great, from the perspective of an AP European History student: I was surprised any production agency would pursue creating such a powerful movie on a topic destined never to be watched for entertainment. Any viewers strapped to a chair and forced to watch this movie will probably groan (if they are truly cultureless), but will leave that chair in tears. This emotional 3 video series is a true classroom hit which everybody should be proud to display in their home video collection.