Spartacus

The 1960 version of Spartacus remains one of the best historical epics ever made but this new film rates very well beside it. It is more historically accurate and much more faithful to the original Howard Fast novel on which both films were based.

All the actors did a good job. Goran Visnvjic was an effective Spartacus and Rhona Mitra a feisty Varinia very much in keeping with the book. Alan Bates is at his best in the role of a senator playing a behind the scenes role in trying to stop Crassus in his drive for power over the Roman state. I was least impressed by Angas Macfadyen in the role of Crassus although it's still a competent performance. I guess that Lawrence Olivier who played Crassus in the 1960 movie is a hard act to follow.

The battle scenes are competently performed but the armies look much smaller than the historical record said they were. I guess the original Spartacus had more money to spend on extras. A long standing wish of mine is for a Roman epic to get the armor right. The Roman soldier of this period wore short mail shirts and used oval shields. The segmented armor wasn't introduced until about a century later.

I couldn't fault the history. Everything seems to be done right, from the first battle when the slaves abseiled down the cliffs of Vesuvius to attack the Roman camp to the splitting up of the slave army when Crixus and Spartacus had a falling out. The gladiator scenes are just as good as the original too.

All in all, a great movie that even die-hard fans of the Kirk Douglas version should enjoy.

The TV miniseries opens in Gaul 72 B.C. where the Romans put an end to Varinia's world making her a slave… Meanwhile Spartacus (Goran Visnjic) is free from the hell of the gold mines of Egypt to be trained as gladiator in the establishment of Lentulus Batiatus (Ian McNeice).

Most of "Spartacus" contains many of the miniseries' best moments… The operation of the gladiatorial school and its training program is impressive and expressive; the apprentice gladiators are treated like special animals, tutored to perform in the arena as spectator-sport-killers, and occasionally rewarded with a woman in their cells…

In this degrading manner Spartacus meets Varinia (Rhona Mitra) and it is his love for her and his hatred for his captors that brings about his decision to escape and lead revolt…

Particularly effective is the scene in which Marcus Crassus (Angus Macfadyen) and his bored entourage visit the establishment and request for a private showing at its best of a pair of Thracians… Crassus wanted to see courage, passion, and above all finality…

Spartacus is matched with the African Draba in a fight to the death, but Draba (maybe rather than live as a beast) chooses to die as a man, attacking his spectators…

The scene summarizes the iniquity of the situation, the cruelty of bondage, and the subsequent uprising of gladiators in Capua becomes a triumph easy to understand…

Director Robert Donrhelm did a decent job, carrying the grandeur and the decay of ancient Rome

This was beautifully acted and when it was over I wanted more! However when the ending credits started to roll I was disgusted to see that Goran Visnijic's name was spelled Goren. Okay if you misspell Visnijic that's one thing but how hard is Goran? That seems awfully disrespectful and unprofessional. Where are the editors? There was a reminiscence of Braveheart especially since "Robert the Bruce" was opposite Goran for the spotlight here. And who could've missed the famous battle cry of "FREEDOM" when it was shouted? I loved Braveheart, I loved Spartacus and, what can I say I love Goran Visnijic. I think it's important these days to try and adequately and accurately portrait history's important events using television and movies because our children almost depend on it as a source of information. Using special effects and quality actors is a good start, thumbs up, but please fix your misspelling.

In all fairness to the people who remade this movie, they had a difficult task ahead of them. Any remake of this story begs comparisons to Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece and when you come up against greats such as Olivier, Ustinov, Douglas and the old dude who played the fat senator you are going to come up short.

Nevertheless I was optimistic about this remake because I thought that new technology, modern film techniques and historical authenticity would make it fresh and vibrant. Kirk Douglas was too old and too "Anglo" to play the real Spartacus. The ER guy is definitely more ethnically accurate. I was also looking forward to seeing the actor who plays Crassus, who I thought was excellent in BraveHeart.

But I felt this version squandered much of the dramatic impetus of the Spartacus legend. Particularly disturbing was the whole George Bush/Marcus Crassus analogy that is not subtle at all. Crassus refers to Spartacus' slave army as "terrorists", talks about a "New World Order" and even uses the phrase "you're either with us or against us". I'm no fan of Dubya, but I found the overt preaching quite annoying and insulting; even worse, it took away from the story. Had it been somewhat more subtle, the way Kubrick's film deftly poked at McCarthy style conservatism I think that the story would not have lost out.

Goran Visnjic gave a very credible performance as Spartacus. Instead of the superhero-style portrayed by Kirk Douglas (which I happened to LOVE that movie), Goran added more depth to the character ... the strengths AND the weaknesses. I also liked how the show developed his skills as a gladiator by having him do some real fighting rather than how it was done in the original.

Crassus (played by Angus MacFadyen) was likewise very three-dimensional. It was a shame that the movie was only 2 hours long (4 hours if you count the commercials). Given more time, it would have been enjoyable to see more of Crassus's political maneuvering. If that character had been born in our century, he'd be king of our country by now.

And there were surprisingly strong performances by others in bit-parts, like George Calil as Pompey, Ben Cross as Glabrus, and Henry Simmons as Draba. You can see that they did their homework and put real work into their character developments.

All in all, I give it an '8'. I'd like to give it a higher score, but I thought that the fight scenes were less than spectacular. Add a few thousand more stand-ins and maybe it would have been more believable. But I just didn't get the sense of volume that should have been there.