I saw this movie on TV more than 45 years ago, when I was eight or nine. I really enjoyed the training scenes and the battle scenes, and with epic scale and great characters I felt like I understood why this movie is a classic. The other night I saw this movie again, and I have to say after 45 years it was a lot less powerful than I remembered. Kirk Douglas is a fine actor, but there's something strangely passive and uninteresting about the hero he plays. Spartacus is just, well, he's a nice guy. And everything comes together too fast, with hardly any real drama or face to face confrontation. We're told Spartacus is angry about slavery, but as far as we can tell he's always been a slave. He meets cute Jean Simmons and decides in about five minutes he's ready to die to protect her. A black gladiator sacrifices himself for Spartacus after chatting with *him* for five minutes. When Spartacus makes his move and punches out the overseer, the whole mob of gladiators instantly backs him up on the dime. Because they've known him for a week already! And when the totally unplanned, spontaneous, flash mob takes over the school (really the high point of the film) everyone unanimously agrees that Spartacus should be the top man and sole decision maker. Because really, they've known him almost a week now!Now why do I call this the poor man's BEN HUR? It's not that I think Kirk Douglas is a better actor than Charlton Heston. But with Judah Ben Hur you get to know the man, not just the historical injustice. Judah is a son, a brother, a man with complicated emotions about Rome and about his homeland. BEN HUR is really a character study, about a man who goes through all sorts of emotional transformations, from a man deeply committed to peace to an angry man bent on revenge to a man seeking forgiveness and redemption. Spartacus, well, he's just a nice guy. He likes freedom, he likes helping mobs of oppressed, hungry slaves, and he likes listening to Tony Curtis sing about his mommy and daddy. Can you really build an epic around this guy?Really, the STARZ series has it all over this old time epic!

For younger people, not that young any more, used to Micheael Douglas' career, it is interesting to see his dad in action. Protagonist with traces more like Daniel Craig or Russel Crowe in our days. This epic shows Hollywood effort before technological resources of special effects. We can notice in scenarios, artificial or natural, and in extras use, the effort of creation of remarkable landscapes. With perceptive and pragmatic script, the movie chooses posterity instead of clichè. Its greatest merit is, in my opinion, reinforce that the conquest of freedom and relative peace of today were not natural, but result of profound clashes. Plus, it portraits the transition from democracy to authoritarianism of Rome.

Though it's a fairly long historical epic, this essential drama features some terrific performances and huge battle sequences in the movie-making era before CGI, which enabled such scenes to become more commonplace.Directed by Stanley Kubrick with a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, based on the novel by Howard Fast, and featuring Kirk Douglas in the title role, the film includes Best Supporting Actor Peter Ustinov as a droll self-interested gladiator-owner-businessman Lentulus Batiatus; it also won for Color Art Direction-Set Decoration, Cinematography and Costume Design and was nominated for Editing and Alex North's Score.Laurence Olivier as Crassus and Charles Laughton as Gracchus provide the Roman Senate political backdrop as they alternatively manipulate the younger more naïve among them: John Gavin – as Julius Caesar – and John Dall, the less capable Glabrus. #62 on AFI's 100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies list. #44 on AFI's 100 Most Inspiring Movies list.Spartacus (AFI's #22 hero) is a proud, combative slave that's saved from death when he's picked by Batiatus to become a gladiator. After being trained by Batiatus' ex-slave gladiator-trainer Marcellus (Charles McGraw), he's forced into a ring "fight to the death" with Draba, another slave-gladiator (played by Woody Strode), for the pleasure of some visiting Roman 'royalty': rich Crassus, Glabrus and their women (Nina Foch and Joanna Barnes).After losing to but being spared by Draba, who chooses to take out his anger futilely against the Romans, Spartacus leads a revolt of the gladiators against their captors, which becomes an insurgency and then a quest for freedom by all of "slave nation".The major subplot involves the slave leader's love for the slave woman Varinia, played by Jean Simmons. Later, she too becomes a pawn in the Senators' manipulations. John Ireland plays Spartacus' loyal right- hand man Crixus; Harold J. Stone plays the silent David, another loyalist.Tony Curtis plays Antoninus, a slave gift to Crassus that's scared away by his master's advances, runs away to join Spartacus and, with his 'singing' and other entertainer talents, adds a culture to the uneducated slave clan as they revel in a freedom that must inevitably end. Herbert Lom plays a negotiator on behalf of some Sicilian pirates that were to join the slaves' rebellion against Rome.The memorable scene in which Antoninus and each of the other slave survivors claim - "I'm Spartacus" - to keep their Roman conquerors from identifying their leader is nowhere near the end of the story.

**This review contains spoilers but I will warn you when they come up."He(Spartacus) was a man who began all alone, like an animal. Yet on the day he died thousands and thousands would have died in his place... He wasn't a god, he was a simple man, a slave"-Jean Simmons or Varia.Spartacus was Kubrick's 5 Movie and it holds up very much to Stanley Kubrick's legacy.At first glance the movie seems like just another slave movie, but as thee movie continues there's exponentiation growth in suspense, development and the evolution of Spartacus. Taking unexpected twists and turns. But before we go on and glorify Stanley's 5th movie I must point out the few flaws.The movie gets boring from time to time with some bad pieces of dialog and some very slow scenes, The 3 hour length of the movie is unwarranted, not once did i find myself checking the time. It would really help the movie to be say, a half an hour short. Now that that's over with I will glorify Stanley before the mob kills me. I cant stretch how much the plot amazed me it was simply a work of art that you don't come across often. The plot of the movie continues to make unexpected changes and the suspense only grows. The effects are in par or even better then allot of what you see today, the whole universe of the film was constructed ingeniously and crafted carefully. The music in the film reflects the scene, as you'd expect from Kubrick. Even though I said there's some bad pieces of dialog there are also some amazing and extremely quotable one to.**Now here comes the SPOILERS and the analysis skip this if you didn't watch the movie.As we know the character played by Kirk Douglas (Spartacus)starts out as a 'simple man',-notice the simple- a slave with no hope no will and no desire and while the character evolves and achieves unimaginable goals he always remains a slave throughout the film, I will explain. As the movie points out there are more Romans then slaves hence making slaves the normal ones and thus simple hence 'simple man'. Even when Spartacus has an army he is still in the query, the starting point of the film. Even in his death he died happy with a smile showing that hes not afraid of dying, the movie previously pointed out that that's a death of a slave "When a slave dies he is free,but when a free man dies he loses what he had" its a rough quote but it holds the same point. What I'm suggesting is that on the broad picture Spartacus seemed, changed but if you look at the details you find, that is simply not the case. Now, the obvious question remains "who is he a slave to". Hes a slave to himself, the fact is hes still in the query and still is "fighting to the death", but there's a difference hes not doing it for Rome and I think that's Kubrick's message. Its better to fight or to be a 'slave' for freedom then to be a slave for 'Rome'. Slave meaning citizen and Rome meaning any corrupt government that doesn't take there citizens seriously, as depicted in doctor strange love. **NO more SPOILERS** No wounder the movie won 4 Oscars. Spartacus is a timeless work of art that I hope wont be forgotten, because "people die, ideas don't"- V for vendetta. The movie is a great time though you need time to fully enjoy it I think its worth the time.Anyway this is my first movie critique whatever this is. I hope you enjoyed the read if you have any objections please reply and I hope you gained some more insight or respect for the movie.