The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
One of the last massive epic sword and sandal productions that has been mostly forgotten, and it is easy to see why. It has many shortcomings and is several levels below masterpieces such as Ben Hur or Spartacus. Its shortcomings mostly come from the lack emotional drama and that only a few of the acting performances are noteworthy. It has all the elements that such a thing needs with impressive set pieces, well made costumes, a thousands extras on horses and high stakes with the fate of the Roman empire at the central plot point. The big battles are technically well made, but they lack any sense that they actually mean something.
What saves it for me are some good individual scenes towards the end and the few things it does a bit different. I liked the northern snowy foresty setting for one thing. A nice change of scenery from the usual sunny and sandy environments. Timonides as a character, played by James Mason, was one of the few characters that really made an impression among the otherwise mostly bland performances. He is the real hero and his speeches are filled with passion and ideology, which elevated the overall theme of fighting for freedom (which these classic Hollywood epics are always about in some form) to something that actually felt like it meant something. It is not just surface level Roman politics about who becomes the new emperor, but the movie makes at least an attempt to add the long perspective.
It doesn’t end with the usual heroic fanfare, but on the ill omen of how the downfall of the empire has started. This premise really has potential to do something different than similar movies of the time, but gets too distracted by the usual spectacles that it doesn’t quite know what to with other than just having it because it is was is expected from such movies.
Rating: 3.5