This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Huge scale historical romance set against the backdrop of the Rome/ Carthage wars in the 2nd century BC. The production is amazing with a scale and a look that few films, even the Hollywood epics ever matched. As jaw dropping spectacle the film is top of the heap. However the film suffers from a storyline that is at best soap opera as a wounded soldier is saved by a priestess who falls in love with him while he has love elsewhere. Things get complicated as the soldier leaves to rescue his lady love with the priestess in tow, causing a great deal of friction for everyone. At the same time the Romans attack Carthage…and then it gets even more complicated. It seemed to have been plotted by a monkey on espresso who just wanted to keep things movie, since there is way too much going on since after awhile I began to get lost.(being tired didn't help either).Its not bad its just ..please stop enough already. Worth a look for those who like spectacle or for those who like historical romance.

The cast is really international:Anne Heywood (English),José Suarez (Spanish) ,Daniel Gélin and Pierre Brasseur (French) and for all that,Italians(Paolo Stoppa and Terence Hill here credited as Mario Girotti).The film is supposed to tell Carthage 's last stand .The Romans wanted the city to be destroyed then rebuilt some miles away from the shore.A merchant,the villain, (Gélin,at his worst) wants to negotiate but a soldier(Suarez ),the hero,wants to fight against the enemy.After this start ,nothing makes sense: the plot gets bogged down in uninteresting love rivalries ,most of the time away from Carthage city .When it finally comes back to the essential (that is to say the Romans' impending victory) it's only to show (and the title is no lie) Carthage in flames .An ending a la "last days of Pompei" without a volcano,where the villains are punished and the heroes rewarded.