text: 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.