bushrodII

This film, made at the twilight of Mr. Reeves film career, is certainly one of his best. The location work in Egypt and a rather big budget look add a great amount of, shall I say it?, realism to an essentially escapist, fantastical genre- the Italian sword and sandal flicks of the 1958-64 period. This picture also features some extremely diabolical villainy on the part of Crassus. Sir Laurence Olivier wasn't nearly this outrageously evil playing the same character in SPARTACUS! Steve's dilemma is pretty heavy in this one, doing a complete 180 from up and coming Roman centurions to advocate warrior of the freedom movement for the slaves of Rome. The action scenes stand up pretty well after 40 plus years.

The dialogue of this thing is sometimes just wretched- Frank's dated, 'hip' talk, Spencer's supposed religious struggle or whatever vocalizings, Barbara Luna's innocent sweetness. All the other characters speechify to a greater or lesser degree. They're all just clichéd duds IMO. BUT- where did they film this thing? It looks pretty good, even the obvious studio shots. The earthquake stuff- I'll be darned- looked real! And that Volcano was the greatest, fakest, blowingest piece of technicolored lava spewing Hollywood mountain I've ever seen. I was completely entertained, yes sir. Watch it just for that- fast forward through the plot drivel or turn the sound down and just imagine the talk; anything is better than what they're actually saying.