Now, I'm normally not one for historical movies, but this film was absolutely magnificent. Beautiful performances from Alan Rickman, reminding us why he is one of Britain's great actors, along with Ian McKellen, another sterling performance from him. Greta Scacchi effectively underplayed the role of the Tsarina, while there was a brief but excellent performance from James Frain, who is another young actor to watch. It is very hard to find fault in this film, as it was so well directed, written, acted, with wonderful costumes and sets, although I didn't realise how many Russians had a perfect english accent(ba-boom-tish). Excellent work all round.