It is perhaps because of the legend of the alleged surviving daughter, Anastasia (as well as a spooky priest named Rasputin), that the historical saga of Nicholas and Alexandra is remembered today, but unfortunately, the story of the end of the Russian royal line is cemented only in history, not in culture. This film shows the last years of their reign, the strong love that kept them going in spite of the many trials and tribulations in their marriage that brought a nation to its knees, and their determination to remain strong as they lived in exile. It is a story of family. It is a story of a poverty stricken country where millions of undocumented children died of starvation, leading to a revolution, and then finally, it is the story of a new power rise that is a story all in its own, touched on here by the brief presence of Vladimir Lenin, a Bolshevik leader who founded the Russian Communist party. As played by Michael Jayston and the Academy Award nominated Janet Suzman, it is obvious from the start that Nicholas and Alexandra are truly in love, but the weak-willed Nicholas doesn't really have what it takes to really be a great leader, and the single minded Alexandra has only one agenda: to cure her son Alexi from hemophilia.It was very wise of the casting directors to choose the rather unknown Suzman in the role of Alexandra over a more popular British actress, with both Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson very busy at the time. She is obviously a loving wife and mother, but as history has pointed out, she never was able to connect with her husband's people. Looking glorious in the lavish gowns, furs and hats (one of which makes an appearance in Alexandra's ghostly state in the Broadway musical version of the animated musical film "Anastasia"), Suzman is a conflict of emotions, often cool with her husband and daughters, and one sighted as she becomes manipulated by the sinister Rasputin (an excellent, multi-dimensional performance by Tom Baker) who soon has the nation in an uproar. Assassinations of other various Russian political figures and the Arch-Duke and Duchess of Austria, show the onslaught of World War I, and the very bitter war between Russia and Germany becomes the catalyst of Nicholas's decision to abdicate, setting into motion his own death sentence.The last hour of this film that shows the royal family in captivity is particularly sad because of the audience's knowledge of where this will lead them to in the final scene. There are moments when it seems that they might make it out, but when even Nicholas's own cousin (King George V of England) must deny him a place of exile, they all seem to know that their destiny is set. The actor playing the crippled guard in their final home might be creepy looking from the first long shot of his appearance, but from my childhood memory, it was the kindness he showed them that stood out which leads to the shocking developments of their final moments. There are great moments of joy where the royal daughters have a snowy Siberian dance with the soldiers guarding them, and yet the sad fate, particularly of the ailing Alexi who shows much more strength in many ways than his own father. Also particularly memorable is the way in which Rasputin is dealt with and the two strong scenes of Irene Worth as Nicholas's mother, a character who would later play an important part in the legend of the allegedly fake Anna Anderson who claimed to be Anastasia. This is a beautiful film which is best seen on a large movie screen or digital TV in its original widescreen format. The costumes, sets, photography, music and editing are all spectacular, and as directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (fresh off his triumph of "Patton"), it is rarely dull in its over three hour length. Certainly, even with the long running time, some of the facts or details seem to be missing, and a few facts have been proven to be altered, particularly the assassination scene which history has shown to be much more brutal than what is presented here. There are so many well known actors in small roles that it is very difficult to really review their participations in it, but such legendary actors as Laurence Olivier, Harry Andrews and Jack Hawkins do deserve at least a brief mention. Nicholas and Alexandra marked the end of an era in the history of any monarchy where their absolute power meant much suffering for the poor and much frivolity for the rich. They might not have the fame of the guillotined Louix XVI and Marie Antoinette of France, but theirs is a story which after seeing this film you will not soon forget.

The boy Alexei ruins the movie. His part is poorly written. Every 5 minutes, he is screaming about something so everyone comes running & indulges him. It repeatedly stops the flow of the film. He's a spoiled, self indulgent brat.On top of that, he deliberately does everything he can come up with to defy the rules of caution he must follow to prevent bleeding injury due to hemophilia. He goes out of his way to do dangerous things which will cause bleeding injury & does not care what problems it causes for everyone else. Then add the constant screaming every 5 minutes and you will be so sick of this kid after 30 minutes. It's a wonder he did not rupture his larynx. This was clearly poor scriptwriting & poor direction. Totally unnecessary.Then we have the Tsarina wife of Nicholas; Alix or Alexandra who is constantly feeling sorry for herself & always pampering the screaming, self indulgent son. She is so self consumed & lost in space she refuses to perform her duty & sign the paperwork to feed the Russian people. It was her pressuring which made her husband abandon his duties & run off to war leaving her in charge. But she is paralyzed with self pity, her pampered son's antics and the vile influence of Rasputin. This is actual history but it is still as irritating as is the poor script mishandling of her son.Finally, the weak, indecisive Tsar Nicholas who is so in love with his wife, he can't say no to her despite her terrible advice. He is a mentally immature little boy in a man's body. He does not feed his people or provide schools, medical, homes or shelter. He thinks they need only him & indulges in the peoples adoration and lives in autocratic opulence. They want gov't control. Then his troops started killing the strikers & marchers.The tsar sends his peasants out to war without ammunition, modern weapons, food, clothes, shelter, education or pay to die in senseless wars by the millions which he was cautioned not to start & no way to win. The Tsar can't do his job & his wife constantly whines with self pity & neither can be reasoned with.The peoples Duma gov't takes over but they listen to the US who offers $300 million to stay in WWI & continue to die. Lenin offers the peasants peace & power instead so the rabble become violent Bolsheviks who take over the new gov't & kill the Tsars entire family who didn't have the sense to flee Russia. They had a yacht & several properties outside of Russia as options. Killing the children was going overboard.The British were willing to give them sanctuary as they had done with many other leaders but George V, the grandfather of QE2 & cousin to the tsar & his wife, personally withdrew the parliaments offer to allow his cousins Nicholas & Alix and their children sanctuary in Britain. His cowardice got the Romanov's killed. His journals reflect his cold blooded attitude about their deaths & show no remorse for what he had done.You may have to watch it more than once because the slow pace allows your mind to wander.

This movie is probably one of those where I have to come back a bit later and re-evaluate as to whether I liked it or not. There is just so much good but for about everything they do right there's usually something they do which irritates me more then anything else. All in all, I would recommend seeing this if what I would write down in my complaints wouldn't bother you.The plot being extremely vast will probably be extremely condensed for the review in order to get all of what I have to say about it out. The Tzar Nicholas II Of Russia has a male heir to the throne and he sorts out trying to give a better Russia to Alexi then his father gave him. Unfortunately not only does his son have Hemophilia and the only man who seems to be able to stop Alexi from almost dying being the HUGE "dodger of controversy" Grigori Rasputin but it turns out the only thing that Russia can really throw at these armies is more men AND there is a slanderous printing press who they can't seem to find being that... you know, it's Russia! and things start slowly crumbling.In case any history fans may go nuts about the Tzar being portrayed in a sympathetic light I'll say that he is somewhat portrayed in a sympathetic light... and no, he isn't. The Tzar and his family are portrayed as people that while somewhat good is out of touch with the crap going on outside their door, unknowing of the famine and other stuff, and honestly it does come across as being somewhat sympathetic.Although the real thing I didn't like is how there's this weird mentality they try to imply that Rasputin actually spoke with God and has some form of divine power, in the sense that he says things will happen and they happen in the movie. To me it seems extremely out of place in what should be a dramatization of history. I mean I have some knowledge of the actual man and to me having a man like that actually have divine power just seems wrong to me in SO MANY WAYS.If there are things I liked then here. The acting from Michael Jayston and Tom Baker are absolutely amazing. The cinematography and overall scale of this movie is well done and this movie did kind of open my eyes a bit to kind of sympathize with someone that in any other world, I wouldn't have sympathized with them. I don't exactly know all the history but from what I've seen they do get most of it down.I would say a recommendation depends really, there are a bunch of other stuff I didn't like but that might get down to how other people were portrayed and... I don't really want to look like an idiot when it comes to Russian history and commenting on it. In all honesty, if you're a fan of historical dramas then watching this you'll probably get what you want out of it. Me however, I don't really know yet.

One of the last films in the great tradition of the historical epics which dominated the 1950s and 1960s, it begins with the birth of Tsarevich Alexei, the apple of his parents' eye, on August 12, 1904 and ends with the murders of the entire Romanov family on July 17, 1918. While the film suffers from a few pacing problems, it is nevertheless a hugely entertaining and very well written film with often marvellous dialogue. Franklin J. Schaffner of "Planet of the Apes" (my sixth favourite film of all time) and "Patton" fame does a great job as the director.As the title characters, Michael Jayston and Janet Suzman are excellent, delivering subtle, understated performances. They have great chemistry. Throughout the film, you never doubt that they love each other. Nicholas II is depicted as a weak-willed, indecisive and not terribly bright man who loves his family but whose personality makes him utterly unsuited to his position. He fails to listen to the good advice of his prime ministers, most notably Count Witte, and often takes unwise courses of action at the behest of his strong willed wife. It is not until far too late, after he has already lost his throne, that he engages in some form of self-reflection and realises all of the mistakes that he made. My sympathy for him grew as the film progressed and he became an increasingly tragic figure. He may have been the Tsar but he always seemed to be someone's pawn rather than his own man. I think that, in the film at least, he became a better man after being forced to abdicate. Alexandra - who was hated because she was German - seems to be more intelligent than her husband, who is under her thumb and tells her as much at one point. However, her judgement is as bad as his or possibly even worse as she falls under the influence of Rasputin. She is blinded to his crimes and misdemeanours by her love for Alexei and the mystic's apparent ability to control his haemophilia. She is a less sympathetic character than Nicholas, in part because she says expressly at one point that, on reflection, she could think of anything that she had done wrong in the years leading up to 1917. I've no idea if this statement has any historical basis whatsoever but it worked well in the context of the film as she appears to be as blind to her own faults as she was to those of Rasputin. I sympathised with her most strongly when it came to Alexei's poor health as it was a terrible burden for any mother to bear.Laurence Olivier excels as Count Witte, the Cassandra of Russia whose consistently sensible advice is ignored by Nicholas and who, as in reality, warned that disaster would result from Russia's entry into World War I. I suppose that he was lucky that he did not live to see the Revolution. In his first major role, Tom Baker, cast at Olivier's suggestion, was perfect for the role of Rasputin, playing him with a wonderful sense of intensity. He comes across as a very dangerous, intelligent, manipulative and amoral man who was perhaps the worst possible choice for an adviser. The film has a very strong supporting cast overall: Timothy West, Ian Holm, John Wood, Roy Dotrice, Michael Redgrave (whose daughter Vanessa was considered for Alexandra), Julian Glover, Alan Webb and John McEnery as Alexander Kerensky, who died only a year and a half before the film was released. McEnery looks the image of him, incidentally.On the negative side, the film is too long at three hours and six minutes. It suffers from pacing problems for a full half four (from about 60 to 90 minutes into its long run). They could have probably cut at least half an hour of flab here and there without it making much difference. While the scenes in the first half featuring the Bolsheviks were necessary for later in the film, they weren't terribly good or interesting. The film hues fairly closely to history but takes a few liberties. For instance, Stalin and Lenin meet a few years too early and Stolypin is assassinated in 1913 rather than 1911. I thought that it was rather odd that, while several of the events surrounding the 1905 Revolution were depicted or discussed, there was no direct mention of the Revolution itself. The film jumps forward from 1905 to 1913 very suddenly and it was a bit distracting as, even given the film's length, it felt like it was leaving something out. The second half, beginning with the outbreak of World War I, is much stronger than the first and the film rollicks along at a great pace from then onwards. There is a great sense of foreboding in the second half as the story draws to its tragic conclusion. The film does a fantastic job of contrasting the opulence of the Winter Palace with both the poor living conditions of the Russian people and those of the Romanovs themselves after the Revolution.Overall, this is an excellent film which is neither as successful nor as well remembered as it deserves to be. Were it for its aforementioned problems, I would have certainly given it full marks.