THE MOVIE

This enormously successful sequel to The Robe continues the story of Demetrius (Victor Mature), the Greek slave who, after the death of his master, is sentenced to train as a gladiator in the Roman arena. There, his newfound Christian faith is put to the test when he has to contend not only with the swordsmen and wild beasts of the arena, but also the evil and sensuous Messalina (Susan Hayward) and the mad emperor Caligula (Jay Robinson). Crammed with astonishing action and fight sequences, this heroic epic is not to be missed!

Hmm, not to be missed hey? Well I’d missed it up until now and my life wasn’t really lacking anything. But, after having seen it I can say it is worth watching, but only if you like Sword and Sandal epics, which, I must say, don’t really appeal that much to me.

The film, like several other older films, can be difficult to sit through. It seems to slow and long and tends to drag. When it kicks into life it does do a decent job of bringing you into this world but overall it is just a little too average and rough around the edges for my liking.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

Well, my review for this film’s video can be summed up in one word, wow. Given, it’s age and relative obscurity what we have here is one fine looking DVD presentation. The image is 2.55:1 wide and with 16x9 enhancement. The sharpness levels, whilst remaining pretty good throughout, do drop a little at stages. Although, never to a stage when they become problematic. Colors don’t fare as well wither and they vary greatly. Given the age artefacts were always going to be present as were some other problems like aliasing and edge enhancement. However, this aside the image looks fine and is the best it has looked in a long time.

Audio:

The audio is English Dolby Digital 4.0, a rare thing these days. Dialogue is clear and easy to hear at all times. However, I did notice the strength of it varying. Still, this is only a minor quibble. It is pretty good.

The soundtrack makes good use (perhaps overuse) of directionality and whilst this may be distracting to some I liked it.

The music sounds excellent and really compliments the onscreen action well.

THE EXTRAS

All we have as far as extras go is the trailer.

SUMMARY

If you like these kinds of films then this is one you’ll probably want to check out. It has all the elements of the Sword and Sandal genre and I know fans love it. The DVD is very good and will mean that this is the best you will ever see this movie.