dangkoen Few films have drawn emotion from me as this one. A great set of characters portrayed strongly by it's talented cast, supported by a compelling interpretation of the events that led to the downfall of Rome, told in an intelligent manner. And even the central love story is involving & cheerful.The action set pieces portray an entertaining, yet brutal & uncomfortable feeling of near realism. The filmmakers are able to tell that ultimately violence is a cruel thing & should never be resorted to.All the above factors combined really kept me involved, which is a rare case as mentioned above. The few flaws do not ruin the experience of this great film, recommended to moviegoers without a doubt!

raymond_chandler Movies like "Southland Tales" are so irredeemably bad that re-watching them could lead directly to insanity and loss of life. Movies like "The Fall of the Roman Empire" can be very enjoyable if one gets properly blazed and mocks them endlessly during a second (or third) viewing, MST3K style.Wow, does this film suck. The cast is the most bizarre collection of mismatched acting styles and accents ever assembled. Techniques like filming Alec Guinness talking to Death in voice-over while wandering around his chambers alone, grimacing, fall flat and become downright painful to watch. By contrast, Ingmar Bergman turned a chess match between Death and Max von Sydow into one of the most brilliant films ever made. Sophia Loren gets the same treatment near the end, but her scene actually becomes so surreal that it borders on hallucination, as she pines for Stephen Boyd in voice-over as she wanders through a giant set crammed with extras from the "Matrix II" Rave in Zion.The plot of "Fall" is rooted solidly in historical fact. It is more or less the same as the plot of Ridley Scott's far superior "Gladiator". Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (Guinness, doing what he can and gracefully making an early exit from this disaster) decides to bequeath the Title of Emperor to General Livius (Boyd), instead of his son, Commodus (Christopher Plummer, giving one of the two performances that I thoroughly enjoyed). Commodus and Livius are best buds, as evidenced by the early scene of the pair simultaneously quaffing wine from upraised wine-skins. This scene is the highlight of the entire movie, and qualifies as Gayest Scene Ever in a mainstream movie made before 1965.Boyd is Boyd, and that ain't good. His individual line readings seem adequate, but the sum total is a hollow, good-looking, thoroughly rehearsed nothing. Sophia Loren as Commodus' sister Lucilla gets tossed into the same pit by the script, and John Ireland is reduced to playing the role of barbarian leader Ballomar as a grunting stereotype wearing a series of hilarious wigs.James Mason as adviser to Aurelius and Greek former slave Timonides acquits himself the best of anyone. His natural acting style of stage-bound histrionics fits the film perfectly, and he is given a few showcase scenes. Like Guinness, he ignores the fact that the script of "Fall" is a cliché-ridden joke, and dutifully builds a character of noble grace and moral strength.The script: UGH. The material is inherently dramatic, as Emperor Aurelius attempts to unite the disparate kingdoms of the Roman Empire into a peaceful confederation. Perhaps the screenwriters were too concerned with the history, and not enough with the dialogue. There is little or no subtext, and very few memorable lines. Plummer plays with the words and makes them his own. Boyd rents them and then abandons them.On paper, this should have been a great flick. It features a cast to rival "Spartacus", and a director who has done very good work elsewhere. I blame the script and the cinematography. The battle scenes are terrible, and the general level of the entire enterprise is about the same as the Steve Reeves/Reg Park Hercules sword and sandal epics of this same period. Indeed, I would rate Mario Bava's "Hercules in the Haunted World" as a much better movie. It is cheese also, but cheese delightfully elevated by being served on a platter of bravura cinematic style, with a main course of beefcake.

chaos-rampant This documents the fall of an empire built on power, ambition, money, showmanship, rival dynasties that could leverage thousands in the field of action: Old Hollywood. Falls of this sort, the film announces, are not an instantaneous event of course but a process of decline with many contributing factors. Hollywood was falling for some time and would continue to for several more years until new blood was allowed in.But this revealingly documents several of the reasons behind the fall. In the Old Hollywood vein of DW Griffith and Cecil DeMille, the human being casts no shadow, is allowed no inner dimension or private space, life is a public display of heroism, its machinations are clear and unambiguous, love is announced, ambition is announced, ordinary humans are only given room to writhe as part of a collective backdrop.It's clear why this picture was beginning to crumble. By '64 the Beatles had taken hold, preparing the ground where a new collectivity would be the focus of life and discovery and not the backdrop to gestures. The first televised images of Earth from space had been broadcast, further undermining the notion of fixed stage. The new French philosophies were beginning to rail against any single truth in the historical narrative.So here we have Rome in an extravagant scale, a cast of thousands clashing in the battlefield or the streets, heroes or villains gesticulating conflict, all to prop something that is absolutely lifeless.Interesting is how the film itself responds to the broader perceived change sweeping it. It sees a desire for change and openness, underscored by a Christian subplot where an emancipated slave happily feeds thousands of every race in what would in a few years be understood as counterculture metaphor (the rally is quashed by Roman police). The tyrant all through the film props a culture of superficial image, spectacle, power, violence, the same exact things the filmmakers hinged the whole appeal on: chariot races, marches and counter- marches, lavish decor, the final duel.So here is a grandiose cinematic parade about its own lack of a softer humanity. It wasn't Lean who revolutionized this particular stage in Lawrence, though we had desert space for contemplation and a more dynamic capture. It was Leone, that master semiotician, trained on exactly this sort of Roman spectacle.The film ends with the tyrant dead and senators haggling with the military commander over the price of the vacant throne, foreshadowing the corporate empire of New Hollywood.

johngerardmatthew This and 'Spartacus' are the best of the Roman Epics, and it's no coincidence that 'Gladiator' is essentially a remake of TFOTRE; Scott was inspired by the best.This is a beautifully made, intelligent film with great performances, especially from Mason. And quite fitting that it was the last of the 'Epics'...I grew up watching these films on TV with my late father who always explained the history behind them, and they remind me of him when I watch them.I've just picked it up on Blu-Ray for very little. Although the transfer isn't as great as 'Ben Hur' or 'Cleopatra', which it fully deserves, it still looks good.