Catherine The Great

I am writing this in 2022 having seen 2 of the 4 episodes. Critics' aggregate score for Catherine the Great is not great. I'll admit it's over-the-top and if it were a feature film it'd be R-rated. But I'm thinking I like this for some of the same reasons some critics didn't: Maybe it should be over-the-top. Mirren has played many monarchs. In real life she's half-Russian, on her father's side. Sad she must've read some mediocre reviews of this HBO mini-series. But I'm sure she knows she was Great....

The series initially warns its viewer that only part of everything that is happening is true, but, as was said in the series of one of the heroines 'The First Lie Wins.' Is everything so bad? Or is everything alright? Need to make out. An avid movie fan or smug intelligentsia will look at all this through the prism of satire and humor, very superficial and stupid, unworthy of their high morals. The Russophobes will be happy. This is not to say that the series is bad, it has a wonderful picture, perfectly selected actors (there are exceptions), excellent outfits and scenery (there are exceptions), sometimes even very funny moments, this series is pleasing to the eye, but it hurts the heart with its hyperbolic image of the Russian nobility of the time of Peter and Catherine. Quite often uneducated and stupid people who just do that fight in the corridors of the palace, beat dishes, drink vodka day and night, and then randomly mingle with lovers and lovers in front of husbands and wives. It’s especially funny to see representatives of America’s ethics, but at the same time everyone doesn’t have paragraphs and other races that were just in Russia, why not take someone who is closely aligned with the realities of Russia and not the culture of America? . It was especially bitter for me to hear the song 'Holy War' as the theme of one of the series. What do we have in the end? Pluses of the series: + wonderful picture + excellent casting, with the exception of historical inconsistencies + sometimes funny jokes Cons of the series: - A disgusting image of our distant compatriot - lack of any morality - an open call for polygamy and the undermining of moral principles, which in Russia were just not welcomed at that time, and honesty and love only between two persons were important to everyone - promotion of modern ideas that were not there, Catherine was very conservative -miscalculations in the installation and selection of some parts that hit the eye of anyone who lives or lived in the post-Soviet space - a distortion of history, but it is worth noting that they at least warn that only part of what is shown is true Who should watch? Only those who, like me, are crazy about El Fanning, who are willing to tolerate this interpretation of past events and blows below the waist. If you are indifferent to the history of Russia and you support stereotypes about it.