Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

grantss Good depiction of one of Britain's worst military defeats. Historically quite accurate. The writer and director do a decent job of building the main characters, though probably not enough, as you don't feel much empathy for any of them. Good battle scenes. American Burt Lancaster as Irishmen Colonel Durnford was a bit of a stretch, and a miscasting. I assume they needed him to provide the action-star quality. Peter O'Toole is excellent as Lord Chelmsford. Solid performances from the supporting cast.In the end, a good war-documentary-movie, but lacks that extra something to make it special.

Robert J. Maxwell Rorke's drift on steroids This is the main 1879 battle, called Isandlwana, to which Rorke's Drift ("Zulu") was ancillary. The overall battle was complicated, involving several semi-independent columns but briefly the narrative runs something like this. Some 1,200 British troops and irregulars under Lord Chelmsford crossed the river into Zululand, armed with single-shot rifles and four cannon, to find themselves facing ten times that number of Zulu warriors armed with only short spears and hide shields. The Zulu attacked some of the columns. The British were wiped out. Back at the main base, Chelmsford was staggered. Britain was stunned. There had been many brushfires and rebellions along the edges of the British empire but they'd all been suppressed by modern technology and discipline. This was an unmitigated defeat by natives, much like Custer's last stand. In both cases the native victories were short lived, and Chelmsford was replaced.The film, as far as the untutored viewer can tell, is pretty accurate, down to the green patches on the collars of the foot soldiers. The photography is unimpeachable. And what a cast! Bob Hoskins, Peter O'Toole as Chelmsford, Burt Lancaster, Simon Ward, John Clay, a brief appearance by John Mills, and other familiar faces here and there.The story is told roughly in three acts. (1) The complacent British sit around at a garden party drinking tea and teaching the ladies in their frothy dress how to play cricket. (2) A confident Chelmsford and his subordinates cross the Tugela River, hobbled by their supplies being hauled in slow-moving ox carts, looking for Zulu to engage. (3) The Zulu engage and after a gallant fight the British are killed, although the colors are finally retrieved.There isn't a flaw in any of the performances and the vast, ominous, plains with their occasional crouching mountains is perfectly captured, but the second-unit direction is clumsy and so is the script. At least I couldn't quite keep straight who was where and exactly when things were happening. We get a few glimpses of a map but not nearly enough to give a clear picture of events. Further, there are moments when I felt the second-unit director -- the guy shooting the action sequences -- must have been asleep or juiced out on millet beer. In a couple of shot, the red-coated foot soldiers are reloading and firing wildly while the Zulu extras wander around among them, as if wondering what they're supposed to do next. Not a knock on the extras. I'm sure they were glad to get the work, as I was when I was an extra.What we might call the internal stories -- the little touches of human relationships and character -- which must all have been fabricated since no one survived, are familiar. The terrified rookie more or less adopted by the tough color sergeant. The preacher muttering warnings that are ignored. The conviction that the enemy is unable to successfully engage our own forces -- you know, the natives with their spears and arrows and slings and whatnot, against our technology?Perhaps that belief is the fundamental message of the movie. My God. It doesn't matter whether the battle is an air attack on Pearl Harbor, a defeat of Force Smith in Korea, the Seventh Cavalry at Little Big Horn, the first battle of Bull Run, the punitive expedition against Pancho Villa or Ia Drang in Vietnam. It always comes as a big surprise to find that we've underestimated the enemy. The technology doesn't get the job done. The show of force doesn't cow him. Fortunately for us, these defeats never prompt us to challenge our primitive beliefs in our invincibility.

Colin Keane A fairly early example of a prequel, this film is in the most part faithful to history and makes no effort to spare the reputations of any of the principal characters or the British attitude to the indigenous population This movie for once, portrays the protagonists correctly and one feels sympathy for the Zulu cause The films spends a deal of time dealing with the political background leading up to the invasion and subsequent defeat of the British. A lot of poetic licence was taken with the deaths of Durnford and Pulleine, and the "saving of the colours" by Vereker was in fact total fiction. The battle scenes were both lengthy and in the most part accurate apart from Zulus throwing Assegais which they never did as they were top heavy short handled stabbing weapons. That not withstanding this was an enjoyable movie at the time and you could do worse than to watch this followed by Zulu! to see the whole battle in chronological order. A little heavy on A List actors of the day which pushed it over budget

Timbuktu5 As a history nut who is particularly interested in this particular historical event, I was very disappointed with the movie. Granted, the costumes and staging was quite authentic, but the Hollywood portrayal of this "British Little Big Horn" was truly boring.The amount of film footage dedicated to marching or parading troops has to have been unprecedented in film history. Eveytime I heard triumphant background music begin, I knew I had to prepare myself for another laborious scene of meaningless filler. Obviously, the producers had invested heavily into "staging" and were determined to get their money's worth.Despite the outstanding cast, their dialogue was, again, boring and their characters were never developed. Whenever Peter O'toole or Burt Lancaster finished a scene, I would cringe with disappointment. Their given lines were so weak and meaningless that I could hardly believe these were the same two great actors who portrayed Lawrence of Arabia and the Bird Man of Alcatraz respectively.There are worse epics, but this one is not much better.