Lack of good storyline.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It is nice quite film. You can see very pure, simple man Rasputin. But he was a like Doctor of Medicine. He could hypnotize.He helped many sick people. He liked a vines, vodka, dance and women and they loved him also.He loved the tsar and his family and they love him .It was story of love this simple man and family of tsar of Russia Nikolai. But rich people hated him, tsar and his wife(She was born in German.). They thought that Ruspotine and she was German spy. It was terrible to see, how tsar refused from his state and people. He hadn't any friends. This film is tragedy, but we start love many persons after this film. They did that all that they can do. They had not all knowledge what it was happened. And all they had a very soft character. They not created from steel and stones. It is true, real story.

Beautifully filmed at the original locations. Fanny Ardant (now aged 63) should portray a 34-old Zarina Alexandra, but makeup too, doesn't help. Depardieu is cheap and even more helpless. That may come from a poor script and an uninspiring direction. With all the recent historical information about the whole affair and its real political backgrounds, a more understandable and psychologically credible plot could have been done. Incidentally, Felix Yussupov (Rasputin's murderer) was a homosexual and not a transvestite; he did not seduce Rasputin dressed up as a woman. Compared to earlier Rasputin movies, one could even prefer Uli Edel's of 1996 with Alan Rickman. The absolutely best Rasputin movie, however, is Elem Klimov's "Agoniya" from 1981, starring an unforgettable Alexei Petrenko.

A story which has been told and told and TOLD ;I have seen at least six of them and there is another one scheduled for 2012 starring Jean Reno.This MTV version is watchable but too short ;a miniseries should have been made instead.Depardieu is good,but not as impressive as Pierre Brasseur (1953) and not more than Gert Froebe in "J'Ai Tué RASPOUTINE" (1967).Fanny Ardant is an excellent empress but she is not given enough time to shine .Raspoutine is not completely demeaned :his firm stand against war is shown (he was a MOUJIK and he knew them) but the screenwriters do not really succeed in making us believe why Russian people hated that monk;after all many others praised him and wanted to see him,to touch him;the story is sometimes botched and obviously much time is given to the assassination.They say cyanide didn't work cause it was "cooked" in the cakes .For users interested in the subject ,I would recommend " J'Ai Tué Raspoutine" (1967 ) by Robert Hossein,which begins with a short interview with Felix Iusupov,short before he died.NB: The movie was shown on Xmas evening and some people said it was not a very good choice .