Rome Epic Roams Too Much

Rating: 4/10 (15 July 2007)

"Spartacus" has its moments but feels for the most part like what it is: An overblown epic with too many cooks stirring the pot.
It's shortly before the dawn of the Christian era, and somewhere in the vastness of the Roman Empire, a slave named Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) is forced to become a gladiator, providing kill-or-be-killed entertainment for leisured decadents. Alas, he is pushed too far, and leads a revolt that soon threatens great Rome herself. Will Spartacus lead his people to freedom? Or will the vile Crassus (Laurence Olivier) bring him to heel?
Nominally directed by Stanley Kubrick, for which this was his introduction to the big-time, "Spartacus" is in fact a shining example of limitations, both of the Hollywood star vehicle as art form and the ability of a 1960 film to come to grips with the ancient world. How best to condense the social upheaval of the Third Servile War? Why, how about Kirk and Jean Simmons smooching at a pond!
The film starts off well enough, with Douglas in fine fettle glowering at the camera and everyone else, especially trainer/tormentor Marcellus (Charles McGraw). In a sequence that obviously influenced the later Best Picture winner "Gladiator", Spartacus learns the ropes, makes some friends, and begins to want to do something about the injustice he is experiencing. The first hour concludes in the film's only great moment, a duel between Spartacus and the mysterious Draba (Woody Strode) for Crassus's cruel enjoyment.
Once Spartacus rebels, however, the film goes to pot. Douglas loses the fire while Kubrick loses interest in Spartacus's story, becoming engaged only when the scene shifts to Rome, where the aristocratic Crassus battles with the plebian Gracchus (Charles Laughton) for the city's soul, and Spartacus's former owner Lentulus Batiatus (Peter Ustinov) finds himself in the unhappy role of political pawn.
Ustinov's performance was the only Oscar-winning one in any Kubrick film, and he's great both as a bridge between the two story arcs and as low-key comic relief, playing off the high dungeon of everyone else. The problem with "Spartacus" is you also have some Golden Turkey performances, too, like those of Simmons, John Dahl, John Ireland, and John Gavin.
Olivier may be the best thing in the film, in those moments when he is at the center of it. Playing Crassus as if he were Roy Cohn in a toga, he plumps quite convincingly as he makes sheep eyes at slave boy Tony Curtis and displays a patriotic narcissism in uncovering his lusts: "There is only one way to deal with Rome, Antoninus. You must serve her. You must abase yourself before her."
Nothing else sticks quite like that (and that only because the restored version on the Criterion DVD put back an excised scene of Crassus and Antoninus in a bath, which explains what the old Roman meant by "abase".) Whenever the movie goes back to Spartacus and company, its hard watching as Douglas smiles a lot and moves through adoring crowds like John F. Kennedy at a campaign stop. We are told a lot of Spartacus's skill as a commander, but the battles all occur off-screen, with the one exception being the final one, a clumsy set-piece that compares badly to the spectacle of less-heralded "sword-and-sandals" pictures.
Not uninteresting, especially as the Criterion DVD includes many commentaries and supplements that enrich the experience of the movie. It's just that for a director of such discipline as Kubrick, "Spartacus" is all over the map. It's no mystery why he largely disowned this film after its release; it really was never his picture in the first place.