One of the best of the ancient world epics...

Rating: Null/10 (25 February 2010)

Spartacus has just been announced for release on blu-ray May 25th, 2010. The disc is set to have a slew of supplementary material included although whether this is as extensive as on the earlier Criterion Collection release is unclear.
There was an excellent article written for the magazine Cineaste a few years back that explored the "artistic license" utilized by Dalton Trumbo when he wrote the screenplay for this film, based on a true story. That said, I think it's fair to say that no-one expects absolute fidelity to facts when they watch a historical drama, and these sorts of movies are notorious for playing loose with their particular facts.
As a film, it's definitely the most impersonal of Kubrick's works, not that this is necessarily a bad thing given the genre he was working in here. Kirk Douglas gives one of his signature performances (ranking with his Colonel Dax from Paths of Glory) and the subtexts are handled with more directness than would have been allowed if this had been made just a few years earlier.