Julius Caesar handpicks an army of men, lead by Claudius Marcellus, to fight against the Druids. The Druids are harboring a secret weapon - the Catapult.Not as good as I was hoping it was going to be. I was hoping for at least a 4 or 5 star out of 10 film but 3/10 is as good as it get for me. It's not a horrible film but it is luster-lacking and a bit drab the way the story is told. With that being said, it is one of the better films from Mill Creek's Warriors 50-pack. It's not the best of the Mill Creek peplum batch but it's not the worst from the pack either. I'll admit I was hoping for a bit more out of this one. I actually preferred the way the story was told and the way Caesar the Conqueror (1962) was filmed. I was hoping this movie would be as good as "the Conqueror".3/10

Or at least that battering ram, sought by soldiers of Julius Caesar on a mission to keep these pagans away from Rome. But of course, the soldiers aren't really all that peace loving or civilized, either, and just because they are citizens of the most powerful country in the world towards the end of the times of B.C. doesn't make them any less flesh hungry. On their mission, they are followed by a Roman teenager too anxious to serve Caesar and pays for it dearly (or everybody else by his excessive talking) by the Gauls. This sequence is pretty severe as the group listens to his howls of pain and can't do anything about it even though the Roman maiden with them keeps insisting that they do. There's plenty of action, but not much of a story other than its set-up and quick resolution. Not bad as these sorts of films go, but ordinary. Ironically, a great majority of the character's names were also prominent characters during the life of Augustus Caesar and his adopted grandson, Claudius, which took place less than a hundred years later.

Directed by Italian jack-of-all-genres Antonio Margheriti, this action-adventure flick is set in classical antiquity. Rome is threatened by a mysterious doomsday weapon devised by their enemies, the Druids. The Emperor Julius Caesar assembles an elite team and dispatches them to Gaul on a search and destroy mission.Unlike a lot of other peplum flicks, Giants of Rome does not have a mythological fantasy story. Instead it sets its action in the real Roman-Gaul wars. But like all in the sword and sandal genre its ram packed with the usual staples of the sub-genre, i.e. lots of fights, heroes being captured and heroes escaping again. Consequently, like other similar films, it does get a little repetitive after a while. But the biggest disappointment for me was when we discover the true nature of the terrible weapon. It's simply a big catapult and I'm pretty sure no one in the audience could have been too impressed with that big reveal! I thought the mysterious Druids would have come up with something a little more impressive than that.

Weighing in fairly close to the end of the Italian Sword & Sandal phenomenon, this one is pretty easy to get through and offers several interesting sequences. Harrison plays one of four talented muscle-men assigned to reach and destroy the secret weapon of their enemy, the Druids. They are eventually joined by a few others, some of whom are more harmful than helpful in the end. Harrison is very handsome (vaguely similar to James Franciscus) and not as bulky as most of the other heroes of these types of movies. His chest is covered in all but a scene or two (though his costume is rather revealing in front!) He is adept enough at carrying the lead role, as he did in so many other films of varying genres. As in all of these films, the dubbing ranges from okay to dreadful, but this one is visually arresting enough and has an interesting enough story thrust to overcome that handicap. There's a prison break, a memorable sacrifice from one of Harrison's men, a nifty attack on two rafts and a fiery climax in the enemy camp. As in most of these films, there's a horde of extras, lots of swordplay and battling, plenty of beefcake in evidence and a curvy female for the hero to hug at the end.