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| Augustus | 
 enlarge | Director: Roger Young
Actors: Peter O'toole, Charlotte Rampling, Vittoria Belvedere, Benjamin Sadler, Ken Duken
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.94
Buy New: $4.04
You Save: $10.90 (73%)
New (66) Used (34) Collectible (1) from $3.52
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 26013
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Subtitled, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), French (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 178
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: COLD09655D
ISBN: 1404972196
UPC: 043396096554
EAN: 9781404972193
ASIN: B0006D3HDI
Theatrical Release Date: 2003
Release Date: January 4, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Factory Sealed
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The desperate struggle for power in the world of ancient rome is on. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 07/25/2006 Starring: Peter Otoole Run time: 178 minutes Rating: R
Amazon.com
Augustus is equal parts history lesson and soap opera, and thoroughly engaging at all levels. Peter O'Toole plays Octavius/Augustus, heir to his doomed uncle Julius Caesar's command of the far-flung Roman empire. Surviving an assassination attempt and struck by news of the death of his old friend and ally, Agrippa (Ken Duken), in the same day, Octavius waxes nostalgic about his youthful exploits in Caesar's army (Benjamin Sadler plays the young Augustus in flashbacks) and his unprepared immersion in the deadly politics of the Mark Antony (Massimo Ghini) era. More immediate are Octavius' problems trying to stave off conspiracies by his wife Livia (Charlotte Rampling) to set up the emperor's stepson, Tiberius (Michele Bevilacqua), as heir, and talk his dutiful daughter Julia (Vittoria Belvedere) into a marriage she doesn't want. Roger Young (Jesus) directs this highly watchable costume drama, and O'Toole's golden presence makes the ancient intrigues tragically human. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Augustus Review November 11, 2008
Not a particularly good production. It does not have the fine qualities of "I, Claudius" or the recent HBO "Rome" series. More like a spaghetti western.
 Augustus/DVD April 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
You sent the DVD for a zone 1 showing/I'm in zone 2: Thus not possible to play on my system.Thanks! T. Johnson
Wretched March 22, 2008
I couldn't finish this. It was full of cliche, clumsy exposition and had no real sense of humor. Steer clear of this one.
 Terrible! March 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm always suspicious of one-star reviews. It sounds like somebody has an axe to grind. I read some negative reviews about this movie but I bought it anyway. (Used, fortunately, at a low price.) Well. A one-star movie this definitely is. It has "made-for-TV" and "low-budget" written all over it. The sets vary in quality from pretty good to really bad (a Roman camp looks kind of like a corrugated pole barn without a roof). The acting is wooden, to put it mildly. But the really bad part is the script. It's about ninety percent speeches. By that I mean that everything everyone says is a stock cliche, like "The greatness of Rome is more important than the greatness of our family!" At no point does anyone say anything unexpected or funny or interesting or striking. Cliched speech after cliched speech.
Another really unpleasant thing about this movie is the painfully obvious way that all of the sound was re-done after the filming. It always seems like you're watching a movie whose images are disconnected from the sound. And the sound effects are relentlessly bad. When troops are digging, there is a perfectly rhythmic clinking sound. When small children are playing, they simply keep saying, "Yay! Yay! Yay!" When Augustus has a cough, boy does he have a cough. It's hard to put this into words, but if you see the movie, you'll know what I mean. Plus, throughout the movie there is a symphonic score playing, vague and repetitive and not at all interesting, sounding suspiciously like the kind of symphonic soundtrack you'd hear while playing a computer game about Rome.
At least a game lets you turn the music off!
It's the awful, clunking script, along with the awful, clunking soundtrack, that really doom this movie. It's hard to say whether the actors are really as bad as they seem, or if they were in a hopeless situation.
I watched about two-thirds of this monstrosity before I finally gave up. I kept hoping there would be at least a few scenes that would relieve the tedium.
Denied!
 Classic story told for the masses. June 12, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
As a student of Classics I was eager to see this film. Peter O'toole has always been a favorite of mine.. This film however, is watered down and shot for the masses.. Not a lot of attention to detail is played out in this release. Besides O'toole the acting is rather mediocre. It seems they grabbed a few extras from a Renaissance festival to fill the rolls.. If you want to see a hisorical portrayal of Octavian/Augustus, rent or buy ROME - 1st and 2nd season. HBO did a fabulous job!
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