Overrated

Rating: 4/10 (28 January 2003)

A mawkish and manipulative script from Dalton Trumbo, the bizarre miscasting of Tony Curtis as a "sing-ger of sawngs", and a complete disregard for historical reality overcome spectacular cinematography, well-done battle scenes, and terrific performances from Olivier, Ustinov, and Laughton.
All "fact-based" movies (even documentaries) are fictionalized to some extent, but the attempt to turn Spartacus into the Roman world's version of Abraham Lincoln is not merely a matter of storyteller's license, but a failure of imagination and a falsification of history.