A classic

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but since it was nominated for the Best Picture Academy award back in those days, I thought I might as well give it a try. Honestly, the whole thing was actually quite intriguing. Indeed, it is 3 hours long and it mixed a lot of things : historical drama, massive peplum, biblical epic and even soap-opera. As a result, I was never really sure if I really enjoyed the damned thing. Take Petronius for example. He was indeed a rather fascinating character (apparently an historical figure) and he had some pretty nifty dialogues but, then, every once in a while, you would have this very peculiar romance with his slave which didn’t add much to the story. It didn’t make much sense and that’s what I meant with the soap-opera factor. As far as I was concerned, these romantic plots or sub-plots were pretty tiresome and uninteresting. Furthermore, even though I did like the contrast between the Roman way of life and the Christian philosophy, the depiction of the Christians really followed what they believed in 50’s, it was pretty much biased and even though it was expected, it was a little bit disappointing. Anyway, to conclude, it was still a massive production (the most expensive movie ever made at the time) and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

6/10