Michael Caine looks very dreamy

Rating: 4/10 (23 November 2017)

While Zulu is one of the most famous war movies to come out of the 1960s, and there are many reasons to watch it, if you don't usually like that genre, you probably won't like it. Similar to the plot of 55 Days at Peking, one of my all-time favorite war films, this movie follows a small group of British soldiers, grossly outnumbered by the enemy, who try to hold out as long as possible.
Among the soldiers are Lieutenants Stanley Baker and Michael Caine, as well as Nigel Green, James Booth, Neil McCarthy, Ivor Emmanuel, Paul Daneman, and Glynn Edwards. While sometimes Stanley and Michael differ in their views of how to command the troops, Jack Hawkins rants and raves of the virtues of peace because he's a missionary. Jack's daughter Ulla Jacobsson tries to help among the wounded men, but since she's the only woman in the movie, sometimes she doesn't get treated very fairly.
It wasn't Michael Caine's first movie—I saw him in a movie from 1957—it was his first major role, so the studio gave him a large "introducing" credit. If you're a Michael Caine fan, and you can tolerate a long, tedious war film, you might want to see him two years before his overnight stardom from Alfie. Even if you're not particularly a fan, but you want to see him in an extremely handsome role, he looks particularly dreamy in Zulu.
All in all, I was pretty bored—when I wasn't drooling over Michael Caine, that is. The film wasn't nearly as interesting as other war flicks I've seen, and even Richard Burton's official sounding narration wasn't able to save it.