I went into this with a skeptical attitude and wanted it to be great! I love Epics and being a fan of the Epics of the 1950's and 1960's, and the original SPARTACUS with Kirk Douglas in particular, I was very interested in what would be done with this version. I have no problem with differences in the interpretation of the story since the true history of the actual Spartacus is very sketchy. Historians know very little about many of the details in his life and the military campaigns, so I'm open to changes in one dramatic version over another.
The problem I have is mainly with the production values of this version. Let's start with the script. I realize that all films cannot take the course of Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE Christ and present a subtitled film with the actors speaking the original language of the historical period. Kevin Costner brilliantly used this technique as well with the Native Americans in DANCES WITH WOLVES. However, a film maker doesn't have to take it to that extreme. In the historical epics of the past, scripts were often careful to not include dialog which sounded too contemporary in order to give it the illusion of a past time. This helps the audience's acceptance of the story having taken place in times past. Ben-Hur (1959) is a good example of this. Spartacus (1960) has some dialog problems but is also, for the most part, a good example of this.
That said, this version of SPARTACUS seems to go out of it's way to sound every bit like Martin Scorcese's GOODFELLAS, complete with use of the F-bomb every couple minutes along with every other contemporary expletive one might imagine, including the "C" word, the "B" word, the "S" word, etc. Simply put...It sounds absurd. Can we at least try to give this some semblance of ancient history. With the expletives and the grunting and groaning of the muscle bound performers during the battle scenes, it sounds and looks like the warriors originated with the WWE.
Next up is the violence. I stop short of referring to the violence as exploitive, which it is, but it is SO extreme that it is silly. The use of slow motion, normal motion, slow motion, normal motion mixed with squirting blood all over the camera, all over the other actors, squirting out fast, squirting out slow from this angle and that angle is once again, absurd. It is SO overdone that one is desensitized after watching 45 minutes of the first episode. At one point a character gets punched in the face and even THAT is in slow motion. It's laughable! This viewer got the impression that this was being filmed by students in a high school film class who couldn't get enough slow motion and gory blood spilling. Most of the blood spilling is CGI anyway and looks fake.
That brings up my next criticism. I highly doubt that there is one scene in this travesty that was filmed on location. EVERYTHING, including the most simple scene appears to use the CGI technique and it makes the entire production look like one massive computer game.
Next we have the overuse of sex scenes which are equally as silly as the violence as they are all choreographed to look like the covers of cheap romance novels with men who look like they're from Chippendales and women who look like they stepped out of the Victoria's Secret catalog. No one looks natural. It's buffed bodies and big boobs. Because of the sexually explicit nature of some of the scenes, I can't go into detail here. I guess the tamest way to put it is that some decadent scenes appear as if they were filmed in an S&M club.
This is truly an exploitive piece of garbage that falls just short of being pornography....bad acting and all, but I'm sure it will find an audience. After all, Shakespeare said it best, this kind of exploitation is there to "Split the ears of the groundlings who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise."
The problem I have is mainly with the production values of this version. Let's start with the script. I realize that all films cannot take the course of Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE Christ and present a subtitled film with the actors speaking the original language of the historical period. Kevin Costner brilliantly used this technique as well with the Native Americans in DANCES WITH WOLVES. However, a film maker doesn't have to take it to that extreme. In the historical epics of the past, scripts were often careful to not include dialog which sounded too contemporary in order to give it the illusion of a past time. This helps the audience's acceptance of the story having taken place in times past. Ben-Hur (1959) is a good example of this. Spartacus (1960) has some dialog problems but is also, for the most part, a good example of this.
That said, this version of SPARTACUS seems to go out of it's way to sound every bit like Martin Scorcese's GOODFELLAS, complete with use of the F-bomb every couple minutes along with every other contemporary expletive one might imagine, including the "C" word, the "B" word, the "S" word, etc. Simply put...It sounds absurd. Can we at least try to give this some semblance of ancient history. With the expletives and the grunting and groaning of the muscle bound performers during the battle scenes, it sounds and looks like the warriors originated with the WWE.
Next up is the violence. I stop short of referring to the violence as exploitive, which it is, but it is SO extreme that it is silly. The use of slow motion, normal motion, slow motion, normal motion mixed with squirting blood all over the camera, all over the other actors, squirting out fast, squirting out slow from this angle and that angle is once again, absurd. It is SO overdone that one is desensitized after watching 45 minutes of the first episode. At one point a character gets punched in the face and even THAT is in slow motion. It's laughable! This viewer got the impression that this was being filmed by students in a high school film class who couldn't get enough slow motion and gory blood spilling. Most of the blood spilling is CGI anyway and looks fake.
That brings up my next criticism. I highly doubt that there is one scene in this travesty that was filmed on location. EVERYTHING, including the most simple scene appears to use the CGI technique and it makes the entire production look like one massive computer game.
Next we have the overuse of sex scenes which are equally as silly as the violence as they are all choreographed to look like the covers of cheap romance novels with men who look like they're from Chippendales and women who look like they stepped out of the Victoria's Secret catalog. No one looks natural. It's buffed bodies and big boobs. Because of the sexually explicit nature of some of the scenes, I can't go into detail here. I guess the tamest way to put it is that some decadent scenes appear as if they were filmed in an S&M club.
This is truly an exploitive piece of garbage that falls just short of being pornography....bad acting and all, but I'm sure it will find an audience. After all, Shakespeare said it best, this kind of exploitation is there to "Split the ears of the groundlings who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise."