This magnificent film is truly a big-budget spectacle, shot in Ultra-Panavision. It is entertaining in spots, though suffering overall from too many tedious scenes that go on for far too long. It suffers the fate of most epics, its story and characterizations are too sweeping and generalized and they can’t provide an intimacy that is needed. But what is even more fatal is that it fails to live up to the mythic proportions required to tell such a story, that despite all the splendor invested in its production the film still feels top heavy and too literate.
Christopher Plummer is a grand villain. His evil is cloaked in ordinary human desires and a display of egomania. A slight curling smile that creases his lips and slowly widens when he is made the next Caesar says it all, as he will lead his subjects down a path of wanton destruction. James Mason as Timonides, the adviser to Marcus Aurelius and then to Livius, is the voice of hope. He’s an ex-slave, a Greek, who is now a teacher and a scholar. His call for peace and brotherhood pits him against the forces of Commodus. Mason, as usual, gives a solid performance.