Of His Work, The Least Influence of Kubrick's on Film

Rating: 8/10 (18 March 2010)

Spartacus is Kirk Douglas, and he doesn't mess around. He escapes the Romans and wants to kick their booties. Oh, and he has plenty of slaves to help him. Like, thousands. That's a whole lot of slaves.
The film is pretty straightforward as far as the story goes -- slaves escape and return to kick butt. But it's some of the dialogue that is interesting. One man debates the moral difference between eating oysters and eating snails. To him, there is none, and that is analogous to sexual tastes... an interesting and probably enlightened perspective.
The film is supposed to be anti-slavery, with Spartacus dreaming of a day where slavery ceases, which the narrator says will take another 2000 years. One wonders if Spartacus was all that concerned about the slavery of other races, or if slavery has truly been abolished. Over the years, it has risen again and again in different societies throughout the globe in various forms. Are we so advanced today we have entirely removed the shadow of slavery?