Captivating movie !

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Flat, uninspiring tale of one of the greatest female leaders of all time, Cleopatra. Fails to capture the magnitude of the historic Egyptian, portraying her as a seductress with a lust for power, and nothing more. Our young Cleopatra is alluring, yet she does not win us over as the manipulative Queen, or Goddess, as she prefers.Billy Zane is the smitten Antony, spellbound by Cleopatra's charms, yet not the strong leader she needed to help her build an empire. Timothy Dalton's Julius Caesar could have been that man, had he not fallen to Brutus' conspiracy. Dalton's performance is one of the better turns on offer, though not by much.The cheap production disappoints, and the constant British accents become very annoying in the middle east. Lacks three key ingredients for a film of this type: a grand score, sweeping cinematography and stunning sets - see "Ben Hur". Not an epic; not anything.Saturday, August 14, 1999 - T.V.

If this book remained faithful to the book then we can only assume that the author was ignorant of history. Mark Anthony never died of injuries obtained in battle as depicted. He died a coward's death by committing suicide and even then, he asked his slave to do it for him. The slave chose to kill himself instead. In the real story Mark Anthony was ashamed by the slave's great valor and decided to copy him. But even in death Mark Anthony was a drunken failure and failed at his own suicide attempt. He cried out for Cleopatra and was taken to her, bleeding. She hauled his litter up on ropes and Mark Anthony died a while later. If you want history don't watch this movie. If you want romantic drivel then you will probably enjoy it!

This movie was terrible. The reason I give it such a high score is because the two leads, Timothy Dalton and Billy Zane, were fantastic. Unfortunately, this movie did not keep up with them. Leonor Varela did not deserve to be in this movie. She was acting as if it were a high school play, pouting and stamping her way through the movie. She was extremely uncharismatic and did not have a sixteenth of the depth and class Taylor and Colbert did. I won't criticize the movie too much for its historical inaccuracies. One thing that did put me off was the portrayal of Octavian. He was the main antagonistic force, which he also was in the two previous versions, but in this one history is altered. Octavian was not part of the plot to assassinate Caesar and was not even in Rome when Caesar was killed. The actor who played Octavian in this version of Cleopatra, Rupert Graves, was obviously trying to copy the characterizations that Roddy McDowall, in the 1963 version of Cleopatra, gave to Octavian. He failed miserably. I've read quite a number of reviews saying that the sets and coloring were good. I personally thought that the colors were too lurid and the sets too small. However, for a TV movie budget, it did okay. My final word is that this movie is fun to watch, but don't take it too seriously.

This movie was pretty good, but it did get somewhat boring towards the end. I almost fell asleep.The writing was uninspired and in places really bad. But I am so familiar with the two Shakespeare plays based on the same historical events, I may be biased. During Marc Antony's speech to the crowd at Julius Caesar's death I couldn't help but compare it to the mesmerizing speech made in the movie "Julius Caesar" staring Marlon Brando. I also had a problem with the way the movie portrayed Octavian and I don't think the problem was Rupert Graves. It was the script. In a couple scenes they show Octavian to be a coward. Which, considering he became Rome's greatest Emperor, Augustus Caesar, I believe that Octavian was probably a lot of things but coward was definitely not one of them. I almost think they decided to make him cowardly so Marc Antony wouldn't look so whipped.Anyway, this was a nice romance style movie and I liked the pretty colorful sets.