For four hours this moody, glossy pantomime leadenly plods on, saying much more about the hubris and excess of old-time Hollywood thinking than the burnished glories of an ancient world.
Comment
05/05/08
Cleopatra (1963)
40
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:20
Fresh:8
Rotten:12
Average Rating:5.3/10
Runtime: 4 hrs 8 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: This epic, spectacular love story of Egyptian queen Cleopatra and the Roman leaders Julius Caesar and Marc Antony has dazzled audiences with its elaborate sets, daring costumes, and thrilling sea... [More]
Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Roddy McDowall
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Reviews for Cleopatra
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Top CriticA giant of a movie that is sometimes lumbering, but ever watchable thanks to its uninhibited ambition, size and glamour.
05/05/08
Top CriticHarrison, doing his waspish don act as Caesar, alone rises above mediocrity.
02/09/06
Top CriticMuch maligned for various reasons, this Cleopatra may be the most expensive movie ever made, but certainly not the worst, just a verbose, muddled affair that is not even entertaining as a star vehicle for Taylor and Burton.
03/19/09
[A] general muddle.
05/05/08
This is not a film -- it's a deal, decorated with extensive publicity, but weighed down by listless direction and lots of nasal talk, talk, talk.
05/05/08
Cleopatra is not only a supercolossal eye-filler (the unprecedented budget shows in the physical opulence throughout), but it is also a remarkably literate cinematic recreation of an historic epoch.
09/05/07
Top CriticIt is a surpassing entertainment, one of the great epic films of our day.
05/09/05
Top CriticNo review available.
06/29/04
Taylor, Burton, and Harrison are sublime in this sweeping epic of love and nations.
03/10/03
The movie is also dotted with some battle sequences of nearly epic proportions, but they can’t make up for Cleopatra’s shortcomings in plot and acting.
01/20/03
No review available.
10/25/02
Better than I thought it would be.
08/09/02
opulent and empty, it dares you not to take a nap
07/29/02
A stunning achievement compared to its present day counterparts.
11/26/01
A giant white elephant of a movie, a bloated monument to hubris and excess.
05/16/01
amazing that 20th Century Fox survived this train wreck long enough to produce Star Wars some 14 years later
04/26/01
It's asp-tastic.
04/22/01
A moderately successful, generally entertaining, but overly ambitious movie.
04/11/01
...not required viewing by any means, nor is it the bomb it is sometimes made out to be...
03/21/01
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Latest News for Cleopatra
October 24, 2008:
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