Great Film overall

An Exercise In Nonsense

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

I completely agree with everyone that has panned this on here. Horrible! Low budget, low IQ, and low on delivery. The costumes would have been best suited to The Three Stooges early comedies as well as the dialog and acting. If the women of Rome actually looked and dressed the way depicted in this movie there would never have been any orgies .....trust me. The "coliseum" was about the size of chicken fighting pit. The Sci Fi channel is insulting to its viewers.When taking on subjects that demand more mature writing and subject matter the channel almost always falls flat on its face. I'd much rather the channel would show old sci fi classics , even b movies, than the dreck it currently turns out. I rented this from Netflix and overlooked the source or would never have done so.

I bought this with a bunch of other Sci-Fi movies that Anchor Bay had released under the "Alternate Realities" line-up. I initially thought this was a cheesy 80's movie which closely resembled Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans. Much to my disappointment this movie was more recent and from the opening scene my hopes for some good ol sci-fi cheese reminiscent of the 80s were quickly dashed.The costumes seemed too bright thrown together. I felt as if at any moment I would look down and see one of them wearing sneakers. The actors throughout the film seemed out of place and much too "modern" as it were. The first characters we come across just seem to not be properly prepped for their rolls.. where was the makeup department on that one?I didn't believe any of the actors portrayals in any of their rolls. Eric Roberts was just awful.. It felt like he checked out before filming ever began. Stapleton's character Marcus wasn't much better. Although he seemed to get progressively less crappy as the movie went on I can't say I was able to believe his role whatsoever. Mike Straub who played Gordian was by far the best throughout the film. He seemed to be the only actor taking his role seriously. The soldiers of Rome were pitiful as well. There weren't enough of them so their attempt at a Phalanx (the shield maneuver like in 300) fell short. They all looked like random kids they pulled off the street and once again it felt as if none of them played their roles with any kind of serious intention.The visual effects were atrocious. For a movie that was made in 2008 the lacklustre CGI quality is quite disheartening. I have worked on a few low budget films and the CGI weren't astounding but the CGI in this film makes the projects I've worked on look like Avatar! For a movie like this that did have some production value (supposedly) you think they would strive to make it look a lot better than they did. Epic failure across the board in the CGI department. This movie def. screams Cheese! Unfortunately it's not the good kind of cheesy that you enjoy watching again and laughing at, no it's the kind of cheesy that you are just happy to be done with once the movie has ended. I would feel embarrassed to have my name associated with this movie in any form. had a little more time, planning and research into the story been done I'm sure they would have had at least something that they wouldn't spend the rest of their lives trying to forget was ever made.

No one intends for this film to be anything but "cheese". Historical facts go out the window, but that's okay, because this is a Cyclops.This Cyclops is mean, and eats people's innards. And he can kick Hannibal the cannibal's butt. There's loads of gore for the brats, but the dorks will want more outlandish special effects. We are given more readable actions, so there is a logic of plot and story line to follow than the "video arcade" special effects the dorks would stuff down our throats. This speaks well for the director.One mark against it is the ease with which our hero communicates with the Cyclops. This went beyond cheese.And it is cheese. Lots of fun. Unlike most films, the good guys sometimes win. That's a nice twist. But what makes this into a good cheese, of the Provolone kind, are the fairly well defined characters. Besides the lead, we get several characters we can follow and believe. Gordion and Julian in particular. Even the two bad guys, Tiberius and Falco, have some saving graces. A lot of one scene characters are in for laughs, and do a lot of ignorant things, but this is understandable in human evolution for the scientific minded, because this is set in an unknown BC year, before some of the genes for stupidity vanished. And, in fact, this is Rome, where arrogance did exist in humans, which makes these foolish characters much more realistic than the illiterate masses want to admit.The female lead is ultra beautiful, at least by male standards, but isn't a "woman's woman", but more of the male fantasy woman. She doesn't fit the mode of the former, who we know survive these films, so the viewer never really knows if she'll survive. That does make for suspense.I would've given it a higher mark if there was less gore, and if the scenes where the Cyclops communicates with the hero were deleted. That was ridiculous. The story was fun, though, and entertaining.

I have watched this film two or three times now, and have got to love it. I have found that there are two versions one with the violence left in, the other with most of the violence cut out. (I guess for before the watershed), the cut down version is awful, and makes little sense. But if you see the full version the film is very good indeed. I actually like the CG Cyclops, and the story line was very good in my opinion. I do feel that it would have been better to have a larger budget, as for me there should have been more foot soldiers marching through the forests, but that is a small criticism. Yes this is one for the young (at hart), and no I would not let young children watch the uncut version, but as a fantasy adventure I loved it. I recommend people watch this film, and not just read what has been written in other comments on this site. You may be surprised. After reading there comments, I felt it was my duty to type this quick rebuff, so people will give this film a chance, and make up there own minds.