With game of thrones dominating TV audiences it's a wonder how Spartacus came to light.
But honestly I would take the half naked gladiators in Spartacus over...!
Spartacus Blood and Sand starts with a Thracian called... Come to think of it... His name is never mentioned.
A Thracian warrior who agrees to join the Romans against the Getae . But when the Thracian's are ordered to fight for the glory of Rome as their wives and children are slaughtered Spartacus disobeys an order and is placed in chains as his wife is torn from his arms.
What follows is his growth from a gladiator to a king of sorts as he gives swift vengeance to all the Romans who wronged him and the other slaves.
I was actually blown away with the writing for Spartacus. It's fast paced featuring several characters that are mostly true to life, its generally historically accurate and is well thought out, relying less on sex and violence and more on plot and characters. So much so that I was fully invested from the first episode to the very last.
Most of the characters are written quite well even the ones you love to hate. And while its ending is quite a shocker for those who need brushing up on their Roman history it is a fantastic conclusion. Andy Whitfield and Liam McIntyre play Spartacus and they are fantastic.
While it was jarring to see a new actor replace Andy, Liam pulled it off quite well. And you almost forget that there were two different actors to begin with. Lucy Lawless played Lucretia and I have to say her performace was quite impressive.
She has some serious acting chops in addition to being quite beautiful. The same can be said about Ilithyia played by Viva Bianca. When both of these actresses were on the scene I could not tear my eyes away.
Than there is Naevia, once again played by two actresses. While both were good, I felt the performance of the second was the better of the two. What is up with switching actors in Spartacus. Don't worry you can take comfort in the fact knowing that we we will not ever do that.
Finally we have Crixus played by Manu Bennett. Crixus wound up being my favorite character in both times that I loved to hate him and in times that I was just cheering him on. Also there were several other actors who portrayed other characters who I though were great.
THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL I AM WRITING ALL THESE NAMES... HOW DO YOU EVEN SPELL HALF OF THESE... I COULD JUST GOOGLE IT... NAH...
But non of them really dominated their roles with the same conviction There is something captivating about the visuals in Spartacus. The HD quality of the Blu-ray often reached that of Hollywood Blockbusters and the audio was not compressed in the slightest. However the green screen effects used were quite poor. I mean they made ours look like professional films.
In addition the CGI wasn't overly convincing but it was quite entertaining. Thankfully Spartacus makes up for this with its amazing action scenes, subtle use of bright colours and beautiful soundtrack composed by Joseph LoDuca.
Overall there is not much to hate about Spartacus. It has some of the most prolific characters and gorgeous battle scenes ever seen on the small screen.
And is definitly worth a buy.
Spartacus gets a 9/10.
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