There´s so much emotional charge set on this film you´ll find it difficult to remove yourself from the coach after watching. I think this film perfectly stands up today and it could easily ashame Mel Gibson´s acclaimed Braveheart which I think is a disguised carbon copy of this cinematic gem. Performances like Ustinov´s, Olivier´s and Douglas´we don´t see anymore. Are they overacting? How could they not dressed up in those gorgeous roman costumes. This story has the content and the form, actors who are legends today, Kubrick´s magic and his abity to portrait the roman universe: the greed, the pride, the suffering of the slaves, the beauty and how it could´ve changed the fate of thousands and the joy of freedom, some of our basic spiritual needs put together in a 3-hour bright-dream that always keeps you thinking how the basic struggle of manhood (the privileged vs. the unsheltered) some 2000 years ago is perfectly up to date in the 21th century. Unluckily I don´t quite remember the first time I watched this picture so I can´t recall my first and my true feelings towards the plot and the drama, luckily I´ve gotten to watch it several times and I often think it could be the best ever made, but that, of course, always happens after watching a unique masterpiece like this one and perhaps a bunch of another 50. I refuse to rank any of them since this sort of constraint doesn´t fit timeless pieces of art (could you give a mark to Picasso, Garcia Marquez, Mozart, Maradona,...?). In terms of comparison I could say that Braveheart, Gladiator and others like that deserve 0 out of 10 if you already know what Spartacus is about.
