May contain some general spoilers, but i'll try to keep it as spoiler-free as possible.
I've now watched 7 episodes of Spartacus, and withheld from rating it because fans said "wait, it'll get better". Well, it hasn't.
The acting is strictly average, with some highs, and a lot of lows. Hannah and Lawless do passable jobs, they are veteran actors after all. A few others also hold their own (Varro, Doctore), but the rest is just plain abysmal. The acting of the main actor makes me want to cry at times, i really find it that bad.
The series is filmed with a minimal set, using mostly CGI (i swear 90 percent of the scenes could have been shot in someones backyard). That is not initially a problem, but when the CGI is bad, then it becomes a problem. And when its bad not because their graphical artists suck, but because the director wants it to look bad, it becomes ridiculous.
The fighting scenes is very similar to the movie 300, with slowdown shots, flying limbs, buckets of CGI blood, etc (there were even some utterly ridiculous "inside the helmet" shots in some fight scenes that had me giggling in disbelief.
The show also has a monster budget apparently (4.5 mill per episode or thereabouts.. god knows where they put that money, it certainly wasn't in good actors, sets, passable CGI, etc). I've seen 10 year old video games with better and more believable graphics than this :) The progression of the show is basically fight - sex - fight - some stupid plot - fight. They throw boobs at you like you've never seen, not because it fits the setting, but because they can. Im male, and love boobs as much as the next guy, but that was interesting for all of 5 minutes. Its very much like the wet dream of a teenager who just hit puberty, which may say something about who they aim for as their target audience.
Its difficult to describe it properly, words simply escape me when i try to express how bad it is. As a series, the only thing it can be compared to is Rome, and while Rome had lots of nudity and fighting, it was always when it was appropriate to the setting. Spartacus does it "just because", and tons of it. If one adds movies to the comparison, the natural thing to compare it to would be 300 and Gladiator.
It is very similar to 300 in fight progression (but 300 had far superior actors), and it would be a gigantic insult to Gladiator to try to measure Spartacus up against it.
So in short, to sum it up, this literally... sucks
I've now watched 7 episodes of Spartacus, and withheld from rating it because fans said "wait, it'll get better". Well, it hasn't.
The acting is strictly average, with some highs, and a lot of lows. Hannah and Lawless do passable jobs, they are veteran actors after all. A few others also hold their own (Varro, Doctore), but the rest is just plain abysmal. The acting of the main actor makes me want to cry at times, i really find it that bad.
The series is filmed with a minimal set, using mostly CGI (i swear 90 percent of the scenes could have been shot in someones backyard). That is not initially a problem, but when the CGI is bad, then it becomes a problem. And when its bad not because their graphical artists suck, but because the director wants it to look bad, it becomes ridiculous.
The fighting scenes is very similar to the movie 300, with slowdown shots, flying limbs, buckets of CGI blood, etc (there were even some utterly ridiculous "inside the helmet" shots in some fight scenes that had me giggling in disbelief.
The show also has a monster budget apparently (4.5 mill per episode or thereabouts.. god knows where they put that money, it certainly wasn't in good actors, sets, passable CGI, etc). I've seen 10 year old video games with better and more believable graphics than this :) The progression of the show is basically fight - sex - fight - some stupid plot - fight. They throw boobs at you like you've never seen, not because it fits the setting, but because they can. Im male, and love boobs as much as the next guy, but that was interesting for all of 5 minutes. Its very much like the wet dream of a teenager who just hit puberty, which may say something about who they aim for as their target audience.
Its difficult to describe it properly, words simply escape me when i try to express how bad it is. As a series, the only thing it can be compared to is Rome, and while Rome had lots of nudity and fighting, it was always when it was appropriate to the setting. Spartacus does it "just because", and tons of it. If one adds movies to the comparison, the natural thing to compare it to would be 300 and Gladiator.
It is very similar to 300 in fight progression (but 300 had far superior actors), and it would be a gigantic insult to Gladiator to try to measure Spartacus up against it.
So in short, to sum it up, this literally... sucks