Lambie Reviews Quo Vadis

Year: 1951
Accolades: Oscar Nomination for Best Picture (Among Others)

Quo Vadis is one of those biblical epics that seemed so popular in the 50's, set during the time of the Roman Emperor Nero and the great fire of Roman that he supposedly fiddled through. There are several problems I had with the film, not least of which is that until that fire, not a great deal actually happens.

Some Roman soldier meets a girl, who's not a slave, but an adopted daughter whose actually a hostage. He falls in love with her, but she hates him. And then suddenly she loves him and then hates him again because he won't embrace the new religion of Christianity the way she has. That's about two hours of film right there, and there was still an hour to go.

Once Rome burns things pick up a bit, but it's way too late for the change in pace to save the film. The film even manages to slow down again when the Christians are killed for the entertainment of Nero and his citizens, because even that just drags on without really adding much to the plot. Add on top of all that a bunch of subplots and you've got one hell of a slow movie.

The other issue I had with the film is that the Romans all speak with American accents. In some cases you don't notice it, but in other cases the accent feels way too jarring to do the film any favours. It adds to the whole stereotypical jovial Roman image that just doesn't feel right.

In fact, the whole film feels subtly stereotypical, from the way Nero is portrayed as slightly, childishly crazy, to the way the "hero" of the film has that stereotypical 50's hero running style (the one with the long gait to it). I say "hero" because he acts so unlikeable for most of the film that I was glad his love interest kept turning him down.

And when I said she suddenly falls in love with him before, I wasn't kidding. It's so instantaneous a turn, with no build-up or hint of a change in her feelings, that it was unbelievable. And in the same scene she goes straight back to hating him, again with no lead-up. The whole film is full of these little things that make viewing it frustrating.

I'd say "Maybe I just don't get biblical epics", but I thought Ben Hur was a decent enough film despite it's flaws (and length). It was at least grounded in some sort of realism, whereas Quo Vadis seems a little too much skewed towards the cliched and stereotypical.