Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

one of proofs about the glamour of an Age of Hollywood. impressive at whole, dramatic, seductive, bitter, wise mix of love story and politic, source of inspiration for The Gladiator, giving an impressive Marcus Aurelius and a memorable Commodus, it is naive, childish, maybe, in many scenes, but its force of seduction remains the same and almost unique. not surprise it is the same situation for all the historical frescoes of Hollywood from this period. but this is the motif for sure it again.

This movie had one thing going for it - incredible special effects to depict Roman architecture. The Roman fort in what is now Germany was a masterpiece inside and out. The stone work, the ramp whereby horses and chariots galloped right up to the gate, the log bridge over the gorge....looked very real. I don't know if it was historically accurate or not, but it was very impressive. The Roman temples and various government buildings in the center of Rome were fantastic - what a visual display - it was unmatched in any other toga epic. To this day, such realism has not been achieved again. The same goes for the detailed Roman legions. Now for the bad part - who exactly were the Romans up against - Barbarians or cave men? The Barbarians all had the dumbest wigs and beards. They lumbered around and seemed to fight with sticks. Then, there was the totally inane dialogue, which was more stilted than an oil rig in the Atlantic. Whenever Sophia Loren and Stephen Boyd were together, the lovey-dovey talk with reverent Biblical epic overtones was too funny. Stephen Boyd was a blond, probably so you wouldn't confuse him with Mesalah from Ben Hur. Sophia Loren was caked with oily makeup and seemed to have the same somber facial expression throughout. She seemed like a large, disoriented amphibian. Christopher Lee at least was interesting because he was evil. There were two instances where scenes from Ben Hur were revisited - the scene when Boyd and Lee reunite was very similar to when Messalah and Be Hur rekindled their friendship after many years. The chariot race from Ben Hur was revisited when Boyd and Lee raced off in a chariot "fight", whipping each other and bumping axles along the way. The film "Gladiator" with Russell Crowe borrowed half of "Fall of the Roman Empire". Same scenario where the dying emperor in Germany appoints his general over his son to succeed him. Same psychotic Commodus character. Same duel to the death as gladiators. One more thing - the musical score in Fall of the Roman Empire was very inappropriate. Seemed like the soundtrack for "The Sound of Music" or "My Fair Lady". Really bad.

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.

I have been watching a lot of old epics about the Ancient Rome and Greece, the Bible, etc. lately. Those from the 1950:s and 1960:s are generally very good, so when I saw the great cast in "The Fall of the Roman Empire" I expected it to be a wonderful movie... But it was a disappointment.That is: it is very beautiful, I give it that. You could take lots of stills from all over the movie and make beautiful posters from them!. The photo is beautiful, the lovers are beautiful, and the props, costumes, armor, sets, interior decoration etc. are splendid and lavish. But still... it fails to capture one's interest. To put it plainly: it is boring.First, I think it is much too long. Half the length would have been enough. I think the subject-matter was also a problem. If one compares with the master-piece "Cleopatra" from 1963, everybody (almost) already "knew" Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Anthony. The audience already knew something about them, and had an interest in them. But few people, who are not especially interested in history, would have heard of Commodius. And his general, Livius, who is supposed to be the hero, is probably an entirely fictional character.Also, there is too little space for Livius to be heroic, and also too little love, I think. Too few love scenes combined with Loren and Boyd not really having the love chemistry between them. They are both cold, distant and wooden.Even if you watch these epic movies because you are interested in history, as in this case the ancient Rome, and want to learn a little from them and become more educated - the main thing is still the entertainment. And for that, you want love and heroism and characters that you can really get to know and love and identify with... which is what mostly fails in this movie.Christopher Plummer is awfully good as the weak and evil Commodius, though! Although of course it does not help much, as he is the villain. It is incredible that he could play the extremely masculine, handsome and heroic Captain von Trapp so perfectly only the year later! I mean, in this movie Plummer was not even handsome, and he even seemed slender and not very masculine at all. To be able to change that much for a part must be the mark of a great actor!