Effective swords and sandals film although not to be taken as history

Rating: 9/10 (3 January 1999)

Really a film at two levels. Kirk Douglas and chums clad in designers slave sack cloth take on the might of Rome, while two great classical actors - Lawrence Olivier and Charles Laughton - grapple politically for control of the Roman state. Around both sets of characters moves the not inestimable Peter Ustinov as a trainer of gladiators. Implausible as it may seem, the film works at many levels. The writer and director both suffered during the McCarthy communist witch hunts in Hollywood and their experiences are allowed to come out during the film. Many are not aware of the way most of those persecuted, as well as those who associated with them, were black listed by Hollywood. Kirk Douglas showed some guts both in using the duo and in allowing them so much free rein. This said, the film does not suffer for this input in any way. The suffering of the two gives a strong air of reality to the picture.
The film has three action scenes, the Gladiatorial contest being by far the best. This is an impressive piece of cinema, where two athletic actors stage a fight to the death for a group of half interested Roman nobility. The ultimate battle starts well with the Roman army marching up in a massive chequer board formation which then forms into a great useless square ready for Spartacus to break up with blazing log rollers. This aside the battle is still worth watching and it does finish as it really did. Only the ending lets the film down. Do we really believe it was worth all the suffering to free one woman and a baby?