Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A must see for any enthusiast of Roman History, November 11, 2004
A wonderful and expansive recounting of the life and times of Rome's first emperor, Augustus Caesar. A conversation between Augustus and his daughter Julia provides the narration that covers the early years of his life through to his death.
The story begins with us finding Augustus, after many years on the throne, walking among the enthusiastic crowd in the Roman Forum. Their reaction seems authentically happy to be close to a popular leader who is now in the latter years of a long and successful career. From here we travel back with Augustus to Spain, Egypt, Greece, and of course Rome and spend time with Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, Cleopatra, Marcus Agrippa, and his wife Livia. All these characters are given depth and you truly get a view into why they may have done the things they did.
The settings are generally good and the reproduction of the Forum, while not perfect, is among the best I've seen.
My only significant criticism is the unevenness of how some of the dialog is presented. It seems that many of the actors were not speaking English and their voices overdubbed in English. This sometimes breaks the flow of the dialog and makes it appear unnatural. Hence I believe it rates a 4 star rating rather than 5. Other than that, the acting is very good, especially that of Peter O'Tool who delivers a very convincing elder Augustus. Some critics have cited flaws in the history it portrays, especially around the character of Julia. True or not, this in no significant way takes away from the production.
It's tempting to compare this to the BBC's landmark production of "I Claudius" or the Hollywood production of "Cleopatra". Overall "I Claudius" is a better production but is sometimes too myopic; one gets the feeling from "I Claudius" that the emperors never ventured outside a few rooms in their palace. Compared to "Cleopatra", this production provides less Hollywood-type settings and more depth to the characters.
A must see for any enthusiast of Roman History or anyone who has a child who does not always follow your wishes.
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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Choice Soap History, March 2, 2006
This is one of 3 TV Roman docudramas floating around these days -- the other 2 being Pompeii and Julius Caesar -- and all told they reprepresent an improvement over the Charleston Heston/Yul Brenner sort of soap epic we were raised on. Technology and care improve the sets; audience demands raise the script. And here, the casting is a special plus.
Anyone who knows a little Shakespeare, Robert Graves (I, Claudius) or basic Roman history knows the plot: dictator Julius Caesar adopts nephew as heir, who then must fight it out with JC's right hand man Antony for power; the nephew triumphs and becomes Augustus, the wise and sane but plagued by a family of bozos. Straight Roman history will give you a little more edginess: the great Augustus' hobby was collecting dinosaur bones, and his favorite indoor sport deflowering virgins while dressed up as Jove. So he was more than a little unhinged himself, every bit as looney as the Neros and Caligulas to come, just more on the benign side. But the Romans were so weirdly unlike us it is near impossible to imagine them, much less portray them straight as Kentucky whiskey. The film therefore does not go there. Better to hire Peter O'Tolle and Charlotte Rampling and put them through their paces -- and they do quite well, too. Augustus and Livia are basically presented as aging modern grandparents with unresolved personal issues. Whether real historical Romans even thought or acted in such terms is highly debateable, but for practical purposes there is no other way, as Shakespeare knew, to deal with them except to make them like us.
With a project like this, you have to look at the plusses, and they are several -- most especially excellent and believable embodiments of Julius Caesar and Antony in the early parts. After halftime you get the beautiful Italian actress who inhabits Augustus' daughter Julia to look at, plus splendid downtown Rome at night. O'Toole and Rampling expertly play a mediocore soapy script to their advantage, like pro golfers playing against handicaps.
If the chillun don't know a lot about Roman history, they aren't going to learn anything really wrong here, and will pick up a lot of verified information. And while the devil is in the details, we will simply never have them any better than Shakespeare or Robert Graves did, anyway. So yeah, this one is for entertainment -- and it delivers pretty well (3.7 stars).
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Mini-Series, December 5, 2005
I discovered Augustus purely by change but I am glad that I did because this Italian television production is very good. I was thinking that Augustus would be something of a soap opera like HBO's Rome but it is an intelligent and well-written telling of Augustus' life. There are instances where events have been changed and people are left out of the story but to be able to fit the main events of Augusts' life into a 3 hour program is a remarkable achievement.
The story opens with an assassination attempt on Augustus which serves to remind us that there were plot against his life despite his image of unparalleled popularity. On the same day, he also learns that Agrippa has died (12 BCE) and this causes him to have a long conversation with his daughter Julia (whom he is forcing to marry Tiberius against both their wills) concerning his start in politics as the heir of his granduncle Julius Caesar. It was good to see the relationship of Caesar and Octavian depicted in detail although the tactics used for the battle of Mundus seemed amateurish with Caesars troop running toward the enemy rather than a disciplined march. My wife and I got caught up in the story as it unfolded from flashback to flashback. Agrippa and Maecenas are nicely cast and I particularly liked the outlandish way Maecenas was depicted with his flashy clothes and abrupt way of speaking to Octavian. The role of Anthony (Massimo Ghini) is nicely cast, looking square-jawed like the portraits of the real Anthony, and his Cleopatra is glamorous, sexy and coolly direct when it comes to politics. There are several characters missing such as three of Julia's children (her daughters Agrippina and Julia and Agrippa Posthumous) and Octavia's son Marcellus and her daughters by Anthony to name just a few. However, it does not fatally flaw the program since the focus is more on what Augustus is relating about his early life. I did miss a few characters, such as Drusus, Tiberius' brother, but I take that as a compromise for the three hour time limitation whereas I, Claudius spent 14 hours to tell its story.
It is needless to say that Peter O'Toole is perfectly cast as the aged Augustus and Charlotte Rampling makes a very cool and intelligent Livia. The younger Augustus (played by Benjamin Sadler) is very well played and truly shines in the role while Julia (Victoria Belvedere) is beautifully played and compared to past Julia's (particularly from I, Claudius) she has the passion and emotional range that the daughter of Augustus needs. The set designs are wonderful with the house of Augustus represented as an elegant and comfortable home but not a massive palace which squares with the house we know today. Some of the costumes are lacking in imagination and Caesar's soldiers lacked the typical segmented armor that they wore for a costume made out of leather but I am sure the production was forced to limit expenses. The Roman Forum is an impressive set. I don't think that I, Claudius was a better production; many of the sets in that series were reused and sometimes their decoration (especially when a bust of second century emperor Antoninus Pius appears in Augustus' house) lacked variety.
In short, an engaging telling of Augustus' life that makes him and his family into believable people rather than a stereotype. This is a thought provoking mini-series that with Peter O'Toole's performance brings the first emperor of Rome to life.
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