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The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

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

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I don't know what movie the first reviewer saw but it sure isn't the one I saw or (actually) he is ignorant of Roman history because it was seriously inaccurate. For one, Soldiers in Rome were not allowed to carry weapons within the city walls nor did they work as police detachments to protect the citizens (there were no police, they had gangs and wards and mob bosses who were manipulated by the politicians). The battle scenes against Sextus did not portray standard Roman army tactics. There's no way an entire Roman battalion would be taken down by arrows as the movie shows. They used their shields like tortoise shells and had far less deaths by arrows that way. Also they wouldn't have thrown their spears at the approaching enemy rather they would have marched in strict formation with the spears sticking forward and move like a tank. Then they make Caesar and Octavian out to be peaceniks who only really wanted everybody to be happy and get along (far from it). Pretty much at that point I gave up on the movie. What a waste of Peter O'toole's talent. I can stand a little historical rewriting in any movie but the producers obviously said, "to heck with historical accuracy, just make a movie that will sell lots of tickets." But I'd be surprised if this made a lot of money because as a stereotypical ancient war movie it didn't even do that.

For several reasons, this movie is simply awful. Other posters have listed some of this movie's historical errors. Well, I have a layman's knowledge of Roman history and even I found the inaccuracies flagrant. I usually forgive errors in historical movies because I understand that the purpose is to entertain not educate. And shrinking a long saga down to a two hour feature requires some, let's say, historical license. But this movie goes well beyond mere rounding.There's worse. To tell a story from a distant period, the movie uses flashbacks which just make the story more confusing. Unless viewers have some prior knowledge of the period, they will quickly be lost. In addition, the movie was obviously filmed simultaneously in Italian and English with various actors being dubbed later. At times, the actors seem as if they were in completely different movies which were then edited together. In fact, this is not far wrong. The actors were obviously pasted onto a cheesy computer generated ancient Rome.The only reason I give this boring mess any stars is because I always find Peter O'Toole entertaining. But that is no reason to rent it. If you are curious about Roman history, there are much better movies available.

One of the best movies I've seen since Lion of Winter with Katherine Hepburn. Peter O'Toole's performance is on par with her performance. Altogether a magnificent movie with lush sets and sterling acting from a host of actors unknown in the United States. I'm particularly enamored of Ken Duken as the you Agrippa and would like to see more from him.A great blend of the full range of human emotions humor included at just the appropriate moment to keep it from becoming depressing.I highly recommend this movie - do be aware, however that it is very long - although worth every minute.

I disagree with other reviewers who were quite negative on this production. I quite enjoyed it and will recommend it for anyone interested in classical history. Admittedly, some of the acting was not first-rate, especially among the non native English speaking actors. I had the feeling their lines were dubbed in.That aside, I liked the way it recounted the life of Augustus in the form of a long conversation with his daughter Julia with flashbacks. Yes, some of the historical details were a bit off. But it's tempting to compare it with other productions such as I Claudius and Cleopatra (the latter played even more loosely with historical fact). This production explored why Augustus, Julia, Livia, and others did what they did.Others complained it was too long; on the contrary, I would like to have it longer and fill more detail in some of the years in Augustus's life that were not covered or glossed over.The recreations of the Forum, the Curia, and other locations were the best I've seen. Unlike other productions such as Gladiator, the producers strives for accuracy rather than a Rome of the imagination and exaggeration.