Um, its a swords and sandal epic but it is the most sophisticated and best film of those kinds of films. You know the late 50's and early 60's where there dozens of epic films on history. This is no Lawrence of Arabia but this is way ahead of Ben-Hur!

One its not a simple fun epic like many where... There are some rather advanced themes like homosexuality. You know that oyster scene with the slave (which was not in the original cut, and Lawrence Olivier voice was lost, so they got Anthony Hopkins who was like Olivier's apprentice to copy the voice)
Two the film has many great actors with Kirk Douglas as the action hero and Lawerene Olivier (who's name just sounds sophisticated) really adds a lot to the film. He gives the film a great performance and it was really him that made the film more then a simple fun epic. Charles Laughton is pretty good as the grumpy old senator as well. I always wondered why Pompey was not in the film. He was a rather larger then life figure historically and should have been Laughton character, however it would have made Kirk Douglas even more irrelevant to the film.

Thirdly, the film starts off as a big fun epic and then becomes very dark and depressing and the ending is just dark. You can see Stanley Kubrick's work with the dark scenery and landscape near the end of the film. The battle is gruesome for its time and the scene of the thousands of bodies is rather disturbing.

Fourth, it is a fun epic as well with huge realistic battles and it being so epic.


The films faults with many of its secondary characters who are just comical and really degrade the film with their terribile acting and corny cheesy lines. Like Julius Caesar character... what a waste of a great figure...

Really if it was not for the depressing dark ending, and Lawrence Olivier performance in this film, Spartacus would have been forgotten like many of the epic's from that time....


B+
A great film with great acting and action with a great story however it suffers from being like the many other crappy epics from that time. I like it though...

to me this was the more darker and the better Historical epic of that time. The added influences of Kubrick really make the film much different from other epics. If Kubrick did the whole film, we could have a great film.
Ben-Hur was more entertaining and fun though.

I really like this film because it is not one of those stupid idealistic films.

It is one of those realistic pessimistic films about what really happens when people revolt and its not good.