The Russian Empress
Jeffery Mingo | Homewood, IL USA | 06/24/2007
(3 out of 5 stars)
"National Geographic uses a lot of filming techniques that Vince McMahon planned to employ in his XFL. I think this is meant to get fickle viewers into caring about history. The company's historical reenactments aren't as cheesy as History Channel's. Perhaps this is caused by NG using film while HC uses video. The actress playing young Catherine looks like Ashley Judd. Sometimes I stop watching fictional films about 2/3 into them because I get the gist of what's being portrayed. Here, I had to watch the whole thing because I was genuinely curious why Catherine is remembered in history as "Great." The drama surrounding her rise to power was very similar to Cleopatra's. The documentary sometimes uses the term "class warfare." Though Lenin's success 150 years after Catherine is not mentioned, one could see how the class schisms in Russia, even then, would fuel the Communist rise in the 1910s. This program is too long to be seen in an American public school's history class. Besides, little focus is given to Russia in American schools until discussions of the Cold War. Still, if you have an interest in historical women of power, then you should see this."