Any viewer expecting from Sergio Leone's sword and sandal directorial debut some kind of "Once Upon a Time in Greece" luscious, elegiac epic is going to be disappointed - like, "I found a dead rat in the soup" disappointed.
What sets this movie apart from an endless list of sophomoric "peplum" flicks dished out by Italian cinema in those years is, unsurprisingly, some visual flair - which is to say it looks competent. Mass scenes, in particular, have a certain appeal. I certainly didn't notice any sign of genius in it, though - as one does in, say, Scott's The Duellists, Malick's Badlands, Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Spielberg's Duel... and Leone is by far my favorite among these directors. I guess he was a late bloomer.
As for the rest, Il Colosso di Rodi is chatty, overlong and dated, with lofty lines, bulging muscles, clunky exposition, torches waved in drably lit hallways, exotic dancing numbers and scantily clad brutes jumping with a roar on nearby enemies - the usual, tiresome fare for the genre.
I would say it's for Leone fans only, except I'm a huge Leone fan and I didn't care for it.
5/10
What sets this movie apart from an endless list of sophomoric "peplum" flicks dished out by Italian cinema in those years is, unsurprisingly, some visual flair - which is to say it looks competent. Mass scenes, in particular, have a certain appeal. I certainly didn't notice any sign of genius in it, though - as one does in, say, Scott's The Duellists, Malick's Badlands, Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Spielberg's Duel... and Leone is by far my favorite among these directors. I guess he was a late bloomer.
As for the rest, Il Colosso di Rodi is chatty, overlong and dated, with lofty lines, bulging muscles, clunky exposition, torches waved in drably lit hallways, exotic dancing numbers and scantily clad brutes jumping with a roar on nearby enemies - the usual, tiresome fare for the genre.
I would say it's for Leone fans only, except I'm a huge Leone fan and I didn't care for it.
5/10