One of the long 'Epic' films of the 50s and 60s era, Quo Vadis is another one of those colorful Roman flicks from that era. However, it is not nearly as good as the truly wonderful epics such as Ben-Hur or El Cid due to a lot of small issues plaguing this film.
The film does ofcourse have beautiful color cinematography and extraordinary and elegant costume design, but this seems like primarily the only way that might impress you. Even though it is at times beautiful to look at, it is ( With the exception of a couple of scenes ) mostly indoors and the couple of outdoor shots we get is usually the same one ( Mostly the one outside Nero's balcony which is shown multiple times ) so it doesn't nearly delight the eyes the way Ben-Hur or El Cid did with their outstanding outdoor cinematography. Yet one cannot deny it still has some beautiful indoor sets.
Where the movie falls short is primarily the fact that there is little immersion in it due to a couple of illogical events taking place in the film. These events include Marcus Vinicius and Lygia's sudden forced attraction to eachother which makes little sense. Especially in Lygia's case there is no real reason why she should be attracted to him and STILL be attracted to him after basically purchasing her like she is some kind of slave. The entire romance is forced and is not helped by a pretty mediocre performance by Deborah Kerr who comes over as a literal line reader who delivers her lines very forced. Robert Taylor was a bit better but at the same time he is not the kind of Charlton Heston that basically immerses you into his character due to his fantastic screen presence and demeanor.
The biggest problem however, is Nero. Quite possibly not really Peter Ustinov's fault, but the screenplays fault for displaying him like a kind of spoiled little child who somehow still manages to rule the greatest empire the world has ever seen. Once again, immersion take a big hit here because these kind of events just don't make any sense. Directors trying way too hard to try to show us what a psychopath and what an absolute ridiculous maniac Nero is results in him being a wimpy villain that you do not really hate or love, but just despise as a terribly annoying character. The movie has been often criticized for lacking sub text and that is definitely a true fact, as these kind of things basically insult the viewers intelligence.
Towards the last hour or so of the film is where the characters are supposed to suffer and bring out an emotional response in the viewer, but since all our main characters are just poorly developed and not very well acted and also seem to do weird things ( Marcus's suddenly seeing that Nero is insane, as if he couldn't tell earlier ), our emotional connection to them isn't that great at this point. We are also supposed to hate on Nero, which is shown shamelessly without any sub text during the entire film by his ridiculous portrayal, yet due to this we do not really hate him but loathe his terrible character.
One of the greatest film composers, Miklos Rozsa, did compose the music for this film, yet compared to Ben-Hur or El Cid which he also composed, while not bad, it still seemed to lack a tugging at the heartstrings kind of composition that both of those did have. But i do believe Rozsa really could not have saved the mediocrity of this film, that blame lies by the director and screenwriters.
It is a beautiful epic sometimes, with a good ( Yet as said before not one of Rozsa's greatest ) musical score & costume design. But the little sense all of the characters make in their respective world of 'Quo Vadis' makes for an experience that is not as emotionally engaging as it would like to be, resulting in a visually impressive yet emotionally bleak film.
The film does ofcourse have beautiful color cinematography and extraordinary and elegant costume design, but this seems like primarily the only way that might impress you. Even though it is at times beautiful to look at, it is ( With the exception of a couple of scenes ) mostly indoors and the couple of outdoor shots we get is usually the same one ( Mostly the one outside Nero's balcony which is shown multiple times ) so it doesn't nearly delight the eyes the way Ben-Hur or El Cid did with their outstanding outdoor cinematography. Yet one cannot deny it still has some beautiful indoor sets.
Where the movie falls short is primarily the fact that there is little immersion in it due to a couple of illogical events taking place in the film. These events include Marcus Vinicius and Lygia's sudden forced attraction to eachother which makes little sense. Especially in Lygia's case there is no real reason why she should be attracted to him and STILL be attracted to him after basically purchasing her like she is some kind of slave. The entire romance is forced and is not helped by a pretty mediocre performance by Deborah Kerr who comes over as a literal line reader who delivers her lines very forced. Robert Taylor was a bit better but at the same time he is not the kind of Charlton Heston that basically immerses you into his character due to his fantastic screen presence and demeanor.
The biggest problem however, is Nero. Quite possibly not really Peter Ustinov's fault, but the screenplays fault for displaying him like a kind of spoiled little child who somehow still manages to rule the greatest empire the world has ever seen. Once again, immersion take a big hit here because these kind of events just don't make any sense. Directors trying way too hard to try to show us what a psychopath and what an absolute ridiculous maniac Nero is results in him being a wimpy villain that you do not really hate or love, but just despise as a terribly annoying character. The movie has been often criticized for lacking sub text and that is definitely a true fact, as these kind of things basically insult the viewers intelligence.
Towards the last hour or so of the film is where the characters are supposed to suffer and bring out an emotional response in the viewer, but since all our main characters are just poorly developed and not very well acted and also seem to do weird things ( Marcus's suddenly seeing that Nero is insane, as if he couldn't tell earlier ), our emotional connection to them isn't that great at this point. We are also supposed to hate on Nero, which is shown shamelessly without any sub text during the entire film by his ridiculous portrayal, yet due to this we do not really hate him but loathe his terrible character.
One of the greatest film composers, Miklos Rozsa, did compose the music for this film, yet compared to Ben-Hur or El Cid which he also composed, while not bad, it still seemed to lack a tugging at the heartstrings kind of composition that both of those did have. But i do believe Rozsa really could not have saved the mediocrity of this film, that blame lies by the director and screenwriters.
It is a beautiful epic sometimes, with a good ( Yet as said before not one of Rozsa's greatest ) musical score & costume design. But the little sense all of the characters make in their respective world of 'Quo Vadis' makes for an experience that is not as emotionally engaging as it would like to be, resulting in a visually impressive yet emotionally bleak film.