Not one of Ridley's best

Rating: 6/10 (25 May 2000)

If you don't like this film after the first half hour you'd better leave and save yourself another hour or two - it goes on & on and doesn't improve with age. This is an epic with no heart and soul - lots of oh-so-evil bad guys and goody-two-shoes, sweetness & light nice guys. You don't feel much for anyone in it, unlike other modern 'epics' like Braveheart, and computerized SFX or not, it can't hold a candle to the likes of Ben Hur/Spartacus etc. In fact, even the effects are not really all that impressive - and if the acting and script had been better I probably wouldn't have noticed, but I had so much time on my hands that I started trying to guess where the 'real' actors and sets stopped and the 'virtual' ones started. It's not quite like Titanic - the effects are not so impressive, and the acting is nowhere near as awful - but it does unfortunately come to mind. Still, at least go & see it in a decent theatre, it will shrivel away to nothing on the small screen.