very long epic with modern sensibilities

Rating: 6/10 (15 May 2000)

I'm surprised that people liked this so much. It was entertaining, but I've seen several movies I thought were better already this year. I found the mismatch between the "realism" of the sets/props/action and the modern sensibilities expressed by the actors to be somewhat jarring. And while I enjoyed the spectacle, the attempt at being serious (which included jerky camera movements and washed out colors) got in the way of that, too. (This is in contrast to Ben-Hur, which is all spectacle.) I thought that the performances were rather good (Crowe was, as always, excellent), but Derek Jacobi was acting in the wrong movie (I think that he thought he was in Spartacus, perhaps), but somehow it all added up to less than the sum of its parts for me.