The Worst Film Ever

Excellent but underrated film

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

his performance is admirable. and this is the first virtue of film. the second virtue - the BBC high science to give to public a seductive, impressive, fascinating portrait of the Hannibal actions. but, each god has its sacrifices. in this case - the historical accuracy. the first excuse - for a real close to testimonies image , it needs a series. and a smaller target. but a good, a real good thing defines this beautiful film - the return to the history lessons - as memories and fragments of rumors about the words of teacher about Zama , elephants and the force of Carthagena- but, maybe, in same measure, as return to the sources about the great hero and his wars against Rome. and this is the best detail in this case.

Please give citations for your claims - for example, that Scipio declared that Hannibal become governor of Carthage - Hannibal became Shophete after the Romans had left, not because of them. Carthage signed for peace but did not give up their brilliant general, but Rome's wrath was so much that he was eventually forced to flee the city.You also claim that Hannibal honoured his agreement with Scipio and so did not return to Carthage to lead them in battle. I've found no such evidence of this, it was well known that he attempted to convince other rulers around the Mediterranean (such as Antiochus III) to make war with Rome. This behaviour is not in line with someone who agreed to never make war on Rome again.Thirdly, you say that Scipio is the greater general of the two - this is very much debatable. Did he beat Hannibal at Zama? Yes, he did, but there were many reasons for this and his supposed higher quality as a general is not one of them. Leaving these reasons aside, Scipio was so successful because he emulated Hannibal, not because he came up with brilliant strategies of his own. He turned Hannibal's own tactics against him and quite brilliantly, but the point remains that they were not his tactics to begin with.Finally, the film does flutter about Scipio's role in Roman politics - in real life, Scipio lost favour with the senate due to increasing pressure from his political enemies, and his popularity with the people, and dropped out of the public limelight entirely. It was not due to some honourable statement of his.

The BBC makes a lot of good historical documentaries and the story of Hannibal has everything needed for a great one. This treatment was very far from it, simply because it was too short. Given the length of Hannibal's campaign, much longer than Alexander's, a two hour documentary would be the minimum.Okay, BBC doesn't have the budget and our knowledge of Hannibal is incomplete, not to mention that much of what we do know is in contention. Still, Hannibal's genius didn't just lie in his crossing of the alps and Cannae, but in general logistics. His being able to outmaneuver his opponents again and again. I would love to have seen the crossing of the Rhone, both Trebbia and Trasimene, and a lot more detail on Cannae and Zama, all of which are timeless classics in classical history. The fact that our knowledge is incomplete also allows for a lot of opportunists for informed guesswork and gap-filling, which the producers have missed out on.All this is a huge shame because Siddig was a very believable Hannibal and a good actor. In general, BBC documentaries do history much better than Hollywood, because attention is given to accuracy, and the target audience is more specific. It's just unfortunate that they're limited by such things and budget and time constraints. Given the length of this show, it is unlikely that it will be released on DVD, and it will be a long time before there will be another attempt at Hannibal...

Hannibal Barca, a man who's tactics at Cannae are still studied at Military Academies (West Point) to this day, is in my opinion the greatest commander that ever lived. Of course we have Alexander, of whom Hannibal studied his military tactics. However Hannibal, at great odds against him, moved a force of 46,000 men with 37 war elephants across the Alps at the start of winter and made it to Italy. Of course he lost almost half his forces and only a few elephants survived. At any rate this achievement alone proved his leadership and willpower to overcome any obstacle between him and his most hated enemy...Rome. General Schwarzkopf made reference to Hannibal during Desert Storm and used some of his tactics during the invasion. As to the TV movie, the acting was pretty good, Siddig's performance as Hannibal was very good. An interesting point were the battles. They would show the aftermath of the battles, rather then a prolonged sequence of bloodletting. Historically accurate to a certain degree(according to the Romans as stated at the end of the movie), I enjoyed it. An interesting point is that Hannibal enabled Rome to become the conquering empire that we all know of. Scipio used Hannibal's tactics to defeat him at Zama and was then bestowed the title Scipio Africanus. In any event, let's hope Vin's portrayal of Hannibal is at least as good as this one.