Metacritic reviews

A grand, old-fashioned epic, this project is every bit as important as "Gladiator" or a new "Star Wars" episode.

Bright, glossy, grandly scaled and dramatically stolid, 79-year-old writer-director Jerzy Kawalerowicz's longtime dream project mixes earnest religiosity with the depraved cruelty of Nero's Rome in the classic De Mille tradition.

Kawalerowicz directs with briskness and vigor but cannot keep the first half of his film from slipping into tedium.

The film should also wow fans of Herbert Wise's "I, Claudius" and Franco Zeffirelli's "Jesus of Nazareth" alike.