great story of survival and honor

Rating: 9/10 (5 December 2002)

This is a rather long film but movies are generally better when long, only since LOTR have movies, mainly historical epics, are coming back to Spartacus like lengths. This was a politically and socially somewhat radical film for its time. Political games, power, and homosexuality were present in this film. This film is generally historically accurate, but if it were exactly accurate, it would have had to show Spartacus as a man who lost 35,000 men because the germans refused to follow his orders and broke off with spartacus and eventually were slaughetred by a roman legion, a man who was trapped by his own men thirsting for roman blood and had a sense of invincibility. This of course would have made a more realistic but even more of a downer emotionally to the audiances.
With strong messages great acting and Quote like "Id rather be here among brothers than to be the richest citizen fo Rome" and "We must stay true to ourselves" makes this movie one of the best 100 of all time. Spartacus was actually killed in the battle trying to get to Crassus, in turn killing 2 centurions outright. His body was never found...