the audience applauded

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

I love Chralton Heston's roles. He was the very essence of a masculine, clever, smart, superb actor who could perform almost every role he got his hands to. He was absolutely mesmerizing as Moses in Ten Commandments, he was good in many other movies. Here he is not bad, to be honest, the thing is he cannot save this plodding dud of a film from mediocrity that it slowly plunges to in a course of endless 3 hours. The plot seems to be very trite and smacks more of a Shazam Orient Fables than that of a real history. Another big (I mean it B/I/G) mistake was Sophia Loren as a main female part. She is a fish out of her element here completely. The poses, the looks, the smiles, the faked sufferings all betray lack of depth and lack of genuine feeling. She is not even that attractive to be cool just for her looks. To sum it up, this is a rather middle-of-the-road effort, with all the mistakes and prolonged scenes that add more to drag and help not to develop.

"El Cid" is not a bad film at all. The movie clearly is a huge spectacle and compared to most historical films it is rather accurate. But, on the flip side, it also is amazingly dull when the film shifts to the romance between El Cid (Charlton Heston) and Jimena (Sophia Loren)--such that I really cannot wholeheartedly recommend it.El Cid was a title given to Rodrigo de Bivar by the Moorish Muslims. This is because as the movie shows at the beginning, he was a merciful man in war and was very open towards Muslims. However, what the film does not show is that he was so open-minded that he ALSO was employed by the Moors and Christians interchangeably. When the film shows the battles he's in, they are impressive and the costumes are lovely. The film also has LOTS of intrigues--such as the murder of Rodrigo's master and his subsequent expulsion. All this is quite nicely done and it looks great.Apparently, Heston and Loren didn't like each other in real life. This could easily be. But the biggest problem is the terrible dialog. Too often, it comes off as stuffy and dull--and not believable in the least. And, at well over three hours, this is a serious problem. In other words, is it worth watching the fighting and intrigues when you often are forced to slog through one of the least romantic romances in film history. Good but not great overall.

'El Cid' tells the story of Rodrigo Diaz (Charlton Heston), known as El Cid by his followers, a Spanish hero who helped unite the entire country by spearheading an effort to drive out the invading Moors. Branded a traitor by his Christian kingdom, and exiled from wife Jimena (Sophia Loren), El Cid still becomes a legendary figure.'El Cid' is, for all intents and purposes, an epic. Sweeping landscapes, majestic scores, massive battle scenes and extravagance galore, all those same ingredients are there. But, for a film that clocks in at over three hours, it's a complete waste of time. Of the epics I've seen in my time, this ranks near the bottom. Despite the ingredients being there, the recipe was all wrong.It's because it goes on far too long. Yes, it's the story of the man's life, but it just drags and drags. The El Cid story is a fascinating one, and it's remarkable what he achieved, but it could have been chronicled in two hours. It's as if the film was an epic for the sake of making an epic, not because the film needed that grandeur. It's not helped by the fact that Charlton Heston is cringingly bad. In a performance soaked in ham, he just doesn't do well. Watching Heston play Rodrigo was like watching an am-dram actor recite Hamlet: needlessly over-the-top. He's very good in Planet Of The Apes, so I was really disappointed in this.There is good. The music is amazing, so rousing and majestic. Sophia Loren looks fantastic and acts quite well. There is a supporting cast of actors I don't know, but who do a decent job. But everything hinges on Mr. Heston and he doesn't pull his weight.There are some very good epics out there, which are just as long but are engrossing and entertaining. I fell asleep for about twenty minutes during the movie and wasn't bothered about rewinding the movie. And I pretty much spent the last half hour of the film talking with my housemate. Is 'El Cid' one hour too long? Absolutely. Is 'El Cid' three hours too long? Arguably, yes.

Historical epics were a popular genre in the fifties and early sixties, and the idea of basing one on Spanish history may have been prompted by the fact that many such films, although ostensibly set elsewhere, had actually been shot in Spain. "El Cid" is the story of the 11th century Castilian knight Don Rodrigo Díaz de Bivar, known as El Cid from the Arabic word for "Lord". It does, however, take some liberties with history, and some details are taken from two literary sources, the Spanish epic poem "El Cantar de Mio Cid" and Pierre Corneille's play "Le Cid". An example of Corneille's influence is the fact that the hero's wife Ximena (Jimena in modern spelling) is referred to throughout by the French form "Chimene".The plot is a complex one, involving several intertwined sub-plots. The first deals with Rodrigo's courtship of, and eventual marriage to, the lovely Chimene, a courtship made more difficult by the fact that he has been forced to fight a duel with, and to kill, her father in defence of his family honour. The second deals with Rodrigo's equally difficult relationship with his Royal masters, the Kings Ferdinand I, Sancho II and Alfonso VI of Castile. He remains loyal to the Crown even in the face of severe provocation, particularly from Alfonso who in this version of history is portrayed as a weak, treacherous and cowardly individual who seizes the crown by conniving at the murder of his elder brother Sancho. (Alfonso is known in Spain as "Alfonso the Valiant", which might suggest that the film's version of history is not the universally accepted one).The film's third theme is El Cid's defence of Spain against invasion by the Moorish Almoravid dynasty from North Africa. In this endeavour he has some unlikely allies, namely Spain's own Moorish rulers, who have as much to lose from the invasion as their Christian neighbours. This idea of Christians and Muslims fighting together against a common foe might seem like a romanticised one deriving from twentieth-century notions of political correctness, but in fact it is historically accurate, as the Almoravids did indeed invade Spain with the avowed aim of overthrowing the Emirs of Al-Andalus, whom they accused of following a heterodox form of Islam. Rodrigo is presented in the film as an apostle of religious toleration; his duel with Chimene's father arises after he spares the life of two Muslim Emirs in defiance of a Royal command that all captured Moors are to be slaughtered.More than any other actor, Charlton Heston has become identified with the epic style of film-making. It was a genre in which he excelled; he starred in three of what I regard as the four greatest epics ever made ("The Ten Commandments", "Ben-Hur" and "El Cid", with the fourth being Kubrick's "Spartacus", starring Kirk Douglas). Here he gives one of his finest performances. The script shows Rodrigo as a noble, idealised figure- courageous, loyal, generous to his friends, steadfast in love- yet as portrayed by Heston he remains a warm, living, breathing and recognisably human figure, unlike some idealised characters who resemble nothing so much as a cold, impossibly perfect white marble statue. The other outstanding performance, a chilling mixture of treachery and seductiveness, comes from the French actress Geneviève Page as Doña Urraca, the sister of Sancho and Alfonso and Chimene's rival for Rodrigo's love.There are, admittedly, one or two flaws, mostly connected with the plot line. It is never, for instance, explained why Rodrigo should seek to rescue Alfonso from the imprisonment which seems a just punishment for a man who has attempted to kill his brother and usurp the throne. Chimene appears to remain the same age throughout, unlike her husband who ages visibly in the course of a storyline spanning more than thirty years. (According to one account, this was due to the vanity of Sophia Loren, who did not want to play an older woman, something which might also explain why Rodrigo's daughters Sol and Elvira only appear as young children, even though in the "Cantar de Mio Cid" they are adults and their marriages play an important part in the story).Those, however, are minor matters. Heston expressed the view that the film would have been a better one had it been directed by William Wyler rather than Anthony Mann. That question cannot be proved either way; both men were great directors, and the film we actually have is a fine one, able to stand comparison with Wyler's own "Ben-Hur". The film is one of the grandest and noblest of the epics; it is sumptuous in its recreation of the splendours of mediaeval courtly life, and there are plenty of exciting moments, especially in the battle scenes. It is, however, more than just mere spectacle. It has a humane and intelligent script, and a particularly moving conclusion. It is perhaps the greatest-ever film about the Age of Chivalry, beating all the various versions of the Arthurian Legend. 9/10