Maybe it will be better on the small screen

Rating: 2/10 (31 May 2000)

First off let me say this film was merely OK, nothing more, nothing less. We've seen this story dozens of times before, in a dozen different genres, from gladiator movies to football films. The antagonist attempts to, and sometimes does, force out the film's opening hero only to have the hero come back, after a period of rebuilding and soul searching, and defeat the antagonist in the end. James Caan and John Houseman did it much better in "Rollerball" The characters were all your standard Roman cliches with the exception of the wonderful final performance by Oliver Reed. This was the film's one saving grace.
The film style in the battle and fight scenes was rocky enough to give the most stalwart rollercoaster fan motion sickness, while the more cerebral portions of the film were so deadly dull that these sections could cure even the worst insomniac. I saw the film at the Cinerama in Seattle and that magnifies everything about the film, especially its flaws. Maybe it will be easier to watch when it hits the small (TV) screen.