Customer Reviews
Authentic Taste of Ancient Rome - By: Guy Mannering, 01 Mar 2007 
"Longer than Quo Vadis" was an Aussie expression I once heard referring to the 1951 MGM blockbuster. This 1985 Euro-pudding manages to be twice as long & has none of the great dollops of spectacle & OTT performances which fitfully enlivened the earlier version. What it does have is a remarkably vivid evocation of the Roman world &in particular the chilling & creepy world of Nero's Rome (the mid first century AD.) It is also historically quite accurate (unlike the 1951 version) with the plot of Sienkiewicz's classic novel embellished to generally good effect with borrowings from the ancient historians, eg the murder of the city prefect by a disappointed slave & the subsequent execution of all his slaves as retribution. Other reviewers have rightly noted the lacklustre cast & acting (with the exception of Brandauer's splendidly repellent Nero) & the lack of voltage which undermines the narrative momentum. So, if you want spectacle & flamboyant performances go for the 1951 version, but if you want the authentic flavour of ancient Rome then this mini-series is recommendable despite its shortcomings . Also worth hunting down is the recent Polish production which is most impressive with a climactic sequencein the colosseum that is the rival of anything you will seein the 1951 Quo Vadis or Gladiator. It suffers only from a rather underpowered Nero. No version is perfect, but all are worth watching.
Meandering and aimless but not entirely without interest - By: Trevor Willsmer, 24 Feb 2007 Franco Rossi's 1985 six-hour Italian mini-series of Quo Vadis is a very curious beast, creating an absolutely convincing ancient Roman world shotin matter of fact fashion (very few long shots, no big cityscapes), but playing the drama down so muchin favour of allusions to classical literature & history that the story constantly gets lostin the background.
The shifting structure (much of episode one is played out via voice over letters) & lack of narrative urgency makes the full six-hour version simultaneously demanding & undemanding, & certainly far too often uninvolving, but it has something going for it. The two main strengths are the characterisation of Petronius (a thankfully dubbed Frederic Forrest, whose own voice would almost certainly flatten his dialogue) as a man whose spent so long looking for an astute angle to survive court life that he's become incapable of experiencing emotion, & Klaus Maria Brandauer's unique take on Nero as a wannabe actor whose every move & action is calculated on how his 'audience' will receive it. Elsewhere, Max Von Sydow briefly appearsin a few episodes, being rewarded with the show's most impressive & genuinely moving scene here he encounters a child as he attempts to leave Rome. It's the kind of thing the show could do with more of, but it seems all too often to flatten every potentially emotional, inspiring or exciting moment under it's relentlessly low-key direction.
Unfortunately Francesco Quinn makes a staggeringly anonymous hero, blendingin with the walls & coming over less as a Roman officer than that quiet, slightly gormless but inoffensive guy who worksin the same office as you who never says much at office parties - you know, the one who you think is called Dave or something like that. The budgetary limitations are very visible once its Meet the Lions time for the Christians & Ursus battle with the bull is so determinedly low key that it just passes over you before the show just abruptly loses interest & suddenly ends.
Not a trip I can particularly recommend, I'm afraid, but if you do embark on it it's one not entirely without its small rewards. The Dutch DVD has an English soundtrack (though many of the cast are dubbed) with removeable Dutch subtitles.
Nothing to do with hte original - By: , 07 Apr 2006 
I bought this DVD hoping to find a glimps back from the original movie. I forced myself to watch all six episodes but I found it so bad!!!!! The actors performance is poor & the whole "mise en scene" is horrible. Worst of all I found the costumes, they are tacky & the shine of modern fabrics together with plastic pearls is horrifying. When I was watching the make-up of the actors it was as entering the 70ties again.
