'Catherine the Great' on DVD

Of all the terrible made-for-TV movies out there, this one might take the cake.

Catherine the Great, empress of Russia, had a life that was anything but dull, but this bio-pic from 1995 bores to tears. Though it seems to take scant fewer poetic licenses than Josef von Sternberg's 1934 masterpiece 'The Scarlet Empress,' any comparison between the two would be the height of hubris. Von Sternberg could make tension crackle in black and white with the use of candles, one blond face, and a strategically-placed banister; this film, though it continues longer into Catherine's reign than 'Scarlet Empress' did, can't make even a spark from this fiery woman. Whereas one wishes that 'Scarlet Empress' would go on and on, this film moves slowly and doesn't end soon enough.

Catherine Zeta-Jones made this film three years before her break-out role in 'The Mask of Zorro,' and while she does show a moderate amount of potential in the role here, she is nowhere near as charismatic as her Mona Lisa smile on the cover of this DVD would make her seem. Clearly in the middle of her transition from stage actress to film actress, she delivers her lines without Jeanne Moreau, known to some as the Grande Dame from the first three minutes of 'Ever After,' shows more backbone in five minutes of her performance as Tsarina Elizabeth, another of Russia's female rulers, than the entire 93 minutes of Zeta-Jones' performance. Elizabeth's lover Razumovsky is played by Omar Sharif, who is understated and humble in his role, and nowhere near as spectacular as we all know he can be.

Surely the story of Catherine the Great is worthy of better treatment than this.