War and Peace (2007)

This story is so epic, it is remade all the time. Even right now! This 2007 version has very good qualities, the most obvious being the sets, the locations and the costumes. The worst was the actors which are mostly very good but sometimes looked like only one take was made. The snow is also often paper. The fights were often not looking real at all. All in all, I liked it enough.

I have to say that I watched this movie because of my love for Russian history and for Tolstoy. I was entertained yet, disappointed as well.This series is based on the classic epic novel by Tolstoy and is a massive undertaking for any film company and this is a pretty good adaption. It tells the love story of several young aristocrats set against Napoleon's invasion of Russia in approximately 1812. There are a few war scenes, not many, but enough to know what is going on. While filmed in St Petersburg we don't get to see much of it due to it's limited budget I imagine. The focus is on the main protagonists and their relationships.My main problem was with the casting of some of the leads. This was truly a multi European cast of actors coming from all over Europe, including Italy, Germany, Russia, Poland, with some Brits thrown in as well.First of all, Clemence Poesy as Natasha wasn't believable to me. A young lady from an aristocratic family raised in the French style would carry herself much differently. Here she seems childish, bratty, and not especially beautiful, which she isn't in the book, but still she must show something that would attract as much passion as we are suppose to believe she does here. She certainly doesn't come close to the elegance and beauty of a young Audrey Hepburn in the 50's version.The characters of Andrej and Pierre (Alessio Boni and Alexander Beyer) seem very unemotional and stiff, especially Boni who doesn't seem at all passionate. This may be due to the fact that while they spoke English in it-you could tell from reading their lips-their voices were dubbed by British people more than likely due to their heavy Italian and German accents, Bonni being Italian and Beyer German. I have seen Boni before and he is a fine actor when allowed to speak for himself.The rest of the cast is good, with some fine older character actors included; Malcolm McDowell and Brenda Blethyn are marvelous. All of the actors are well known in their respective countries and some have made American or British movies before so they are recognizable to me. I loved the Russian general, Kutuzov, played so well by Dmitri Isayev, a fine character actor.The screen play seems written with the thought that the film will be dubbed and subtitles shown in many countries (I watched the Spanish subtitled version). The sentences are kept short to allow time for the viewers to read the captions; I find this very annoying. Not all the actors are dubbed; some actor's voices were used, accents and all. I love the story of War and Peace, so I watched the entire thing anyway and suggest you do the same if it is a favorite of yours. So far, I haven't seen a version I really love so I will have to make do with what we have so far. I prefer this version to the badly cast American version of the 1950's. Only Hepburn did a fairly good job in that film, possibly because she was born into a European aristrocaratic family and knew how a young woman would act. It did have a better screen play, in my opinion.To dub or notto dub? I prefer subtitles, added after the fact. Amricans, in general, do not like dubbing which is probably the reason it was never released here in the States, but many European countries use it a lot, although I hear that is changing.

lusto777, you don't understand anything about War and Peace. if you even try try to read you'll see mistakes in the film. For example, Natasha Rostova in book is silly and not beautiful girl. Bondarchuk was genius. You can agree or not with his interpretation, but you can't deny that his film War and Peace is the world's masterpiece. In my opinion, his film is better than this one) Also it's incorrect to say such words about directors, actors and actresses. talent doesn't depend on declared politics. i don't want to lesson, but your words drive me out of wits. and your naive opinion about commies and emperor is very funny, it makes me smile. Excuse me lady and guys for this off-top, nice watching and pardon my English.

For those that have read the well over 1,000-paged book, this mini-series will prove to impress you quite well. While most of the characters are well-cast, and the cinematography is rich enough for a full-featured film, I felt rushed along a little too hurriedly. Yes, while Tolstoy did go incredibly in-depth on his characters, there were still some VERY important elements that were either skipped or assumed in this series that left me wanting.Maybe I simply felt let down from the commitment put into reading the novel to see everything shortened so much, however if only they could have spared a few more hours to supply that to enrich the characters...