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Cleopatra Reviews
There gaucheries of dialog, but the faults are few and the virtues many, not the least of which is restraint in the orgies and gore department. The pageantry is obvious theatrics, but I really don't mind being over-pelted with optical delights.
If you go to leer, you will stay to cheer a magnificent spectacle that gratifies our desire for perfection, enriches our love of beauty and art, fulfills our admiration of brilliant acting and satisfies our demand for historical accuracy...
"Cleopatra" has all the appearances of 24-carat gold, which of course is appropriate because it cost so much money.
"Cleopatra" isn't just a movie; it's a phenomenon, a state of mind, an epic of our time as well as of ancient times.
There is no denying that for production quality...this massive picture must be seen. But not necessarily to be believed. For it must stand or fall on the performance of Liz Taylor as "Cleo." And big as it is - it falls..
...the movie lacks any unity of design save by and through the character of Cleopatra; two, Elizabeth Taylor, capable in her range but strictly a 20th-century vixen, falls far short of what is needed as the serpent of the Nile.
Super-colossal, yes, but absorbing only up to intermission and sporadically thereafter.
Considered as two separate but related pictures, which the presentation really is, one is excellent and the other disappointing.
The film is so tedious and slow that I for one could not see the sense of panic that Mankiewicz talked about. He thinks his picture is bad, and he is not far wrong. It has a few splendid moments but mostly it is boring.
Tolerance is the right attitude towards the film.
The film should be seen for its magnificence and its rich fusion of the theatrical arts.
"Cleopatra" is a film of considerable distinction, sometimes brilliant and sometimes dull, with many sequences breathtaking to behold however absurd they may be, and with a superbly written and acted characterization of Caesar by Rex Harrison.
As a screenplay, this is not an exhumed classic, warmed over tritely and garnished with expensive trappings to make it appear more palatable. It is a new look at the historical events, done with sensitivity and imagination.
The spectacle in Cleopatra is superb, and an essential part of its appeal.
In many ways the four-hour marathon of spectacle that makes up "Cleopatra" is somewhat similar to Miss Taylor. It is nearly all visual. Spectacle after spectacle covers the screen and the sight of soldiers marching somewhere becomes almost tedious.
It is seldom that a movie, especially "an epic," lives up to its ballyhoo. Producer Walter Wanger's "Cleopatra" is the exception. It is an "epic's epic." To miss it would be a downright crying shame.
As this super-colossal, inordinately expensive, highly controversial film unreeled its splendors, we forget whatever built-in antagonism we may had developed from the day-to-day bulletins about love, love, love and money, money, money...
It is a super-colossal, super-spectacle that surpasses in splendor and magnitude any of the epics that previously have unfolded on the Todd-AO, color screen.
"Cleopatra" is a really big motion picture. It pleases the eye and excites those emotions which respond to spectacle and clash of masses which the theatrical motion picture can muster better than any other medium of entertainment or information.
We guessed - based on the time, talent, talk and col cash involved - that this might be the finest movie ever made. "Cleopatra" is not that. Not at all. The film...is a failure. A colorful, colossal, breath-taking failure.