Bondarchuk is so overwhelmed by the thousands of Russian cavalry troops he's been given to play with, and by his $25 million budget, and by-his obsession for aerial photography, that his leading characters turn out scarcely more human than his extras.

As for the golden history and legend, they lie buried beneath this delayed replay of a primer on strategy.

Visually impressive, but a rather silly attempt to explain Napoleon.

Waterloo is a spectacle which constantly pays off its panoramas in close-ups... But it gives us only a surface personality of the key military strategists, bits of clever dialogue.