The (in)famous Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. Starting from several months earlier, we see the potential origins of and background to the debacle, as seen through the eyes of one of the chief orchestrators of it, Captain Lewis Nolan.
Decent but disappointing. The amount of time devoted to the battle, and even the Crimean War itself, is quite limited, around 30-40% of the movie. Instead what we have is a lot of time spent on background and, although some of it is necessary, it is vastly overdone, taking about the first hour or so. These scenes have some interesting sub-plots and do show well the relationships that would doom the brigade, but have a lot of padding and is often quite dull.
Plus we go into Nolan's private life and relationships, an area that was unnecessary, uninteresting, badly done and boring.
Then there's the segue-providing animation that probably require you to be high to appreciate (well, the movie was made in 1968) - random and often nonsensical. Sort of reminded me of Terry Gilliam's cartoons in Monty Python episodes, except that there they were funny and made more sense.
The dullness and inanity of the first 60-70% or so is made up for by the battle scenes of the remainder. Very accurate depiction of what occurred, especially the command issues and communication breakdown that lead to the disaster.
The last bit also reminds you how much potential the movie had. By cutting out the fluff from the first half and adding in a more complete picture of the Battle of Balaclava, especially things like the Charge of the Heavy Brigade and the defensive stand by the 93rd Highland Regiment ("The Thin Red Line"), this could have been a great movie.
At least this isn't as bad as the 1936 version of The Charge of the Light Brigade, starring Errol Flynn, though would take a lot to be that bad. The 1936 version totally rewrote the history of the charge, it was that contrived and inaccurate.
Decent but disappointing. The amount of time devoted to the battle, and even the Crimean War itself, is quite limited, around 30-40% of the movie. Instead what we have is a lot of time spent on background and, although some of it is necessary, it is vastly overdone, taking about the first hour or so. These scenes have some interesting sub-plots and do show well the relationships that would doom the brigade, but have a lot of padding and is often quite dull.
Plus we go into Nolan's private life and relationships, an area that was unnecessary, uninteresting, badly done and boring.
Then there's the segue-providing animation that probably require you to be high to appreciate (well, the movie was made in 1968) - random and often nonsensical. Sort of reminded me of Terry Gilliam's cartoons in Monty Python episodes, except that there they were funny and made more sense.
The dullness and inanity of the first 60-70% or so is made up for by the battle scenes of the remainder. Very accurate depiction of what occurred, especially the command issues and communication breakdown that lead to the disaster.
The last bit also reminds you how much potential the movie had. By cutting out the fluff from the first half and adding in a more complete picture of the Battle of Balaclava, especially things like the Charge of the Heavy Brigade and the defensive stand by the 93rd Highland Regiment ("The Thin Red Line"), this could have been a great movie.
At least this isn't as bad as the 1936 version of The Charge of the Light Brigade, starring Errol Flynn, though would take a lot to be that bad. The 1936 version totally rewrote the history of the charge, it was that contrived and inaccurate.