Classic.

Rating: 9/10 (13 March 2010)

No doubt that, technically speaking, Stanley Kubrick is maybe the greatest director of all time, he can create an atmosphere like no one else, but he tends to ruin his screenplays, like he did with "A Clockwork Orange". But there are only two of his movies, that I don't have any complains about the script, "The Shining" that, although it's a wonderful movie, didn't scare me at all, and the movie that I'm reviewing now, so I can say that this is for me Kubrick's finest movies, and it was was very hard to choose.
With wonderful performances by Douglas and, specially, by Olivier, this is a true classic epic. Now let me explain the real meaning of classic. It's not only a good movie, a classic is a movie that, regardless being a good movie, it's a movie that inspire future movies, it's not that's saying this, it's the real meaning of it. So when you an excellent movie like "Braveheart", that took a lot of elements of "Spartacus", you see that this movie is a truly classic.
It's romance can make the film a little boring sometimes, but without it, we would miss powerful scenes in the movie, like the last one, if there wasn't all that love story, it would take a lot of it's impact, that moving scene would appear fake. But when we're talking about action, this film does not disappoint, considering that I watched "Ratatouille" in the same day I watched this one, the rebellion remembered me a lot of the rat rebellion in Pixar's movie, the image of slaves rebelling, and getting away of the training area, like mouses running away from human is very striking, and well filmed, with Kubrick making a wide shot so we can have and idea of the quantity of people were running away is admirable.
Verdict: A classic, by one of the best directors of all time, indispensable!