听 
American TV movies are mostly known for their leaden plotting, hysterical performances and schmaltzy stories of brave heroines with disintegrating families. Which is perhaps why "Rasputin's" higher production values and distinguished cast earned HBO three Golden Globes and three Emmy Awards.
Rickman plays the 'mad monk' Grigori Rasputin, a boorish Russian peasant who believes he has a connection with God. When the child of Tsar Nicholas II (McKellen) of Russia falls ill, he is called to the royal court to heal him. But as his dubious morality causes tensions within the royal family, outside the palace political dissent and war brews that could destroy them all.
Money has been thrown around fairly liberally. The cast are distinguished British stage and screen presences, some of whom have been wooed from relatively successful movie careers. And the film looks sumptuous - much of it was filmed on location in the Royal Palaces of St Petersburg themselves.
But the films pretension's to class are finally merely pretensions. Under the surface it remains very much the TV movie, with all the requisite cheese intact. The plotting really is slow and clumsy, held together by the "heart-rending" voiceover of a child. Many of the performances are overwrought. Alan Rickman may have the charisma of a mad monk, but he is simply unable to play a convincing peasant. And the film, in the end, centres around the attempts of the Tsarina (Scacchi) to hold the Romanovs together even at their darkest hour, and by any means necessary.
Disappointing.
