The Age of Commercialism

Simply Perfect

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

For some reason 'El Cid' is not as well known among the 'Epic' genre of film like Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia, but this does not deter it from its quality. It is one of the greatest of its kind, an epic story about a man who becomes a hero and later legend.It is a simply sensational motion picture that manages to create every shot in such an artistic way that every single frame becomes fascinating. Indoor scenes have beautiful scenery and are lit incredibly well. Outdoor scenes ( It was mostly actually filmed in Spain where it took place ) are visually just incredible due to the angles Anthony Mann gives us. There are frequent scenes with loads of extra's on horses during these outdoor scenes and these are always a joy to look at due to their natural movements and the beautiful Spanish landscapes with great angles in the background. Battle scenes are so massive in scale, but filmed with such skill that it immerses you into the film. The overview during battles is simply incredible as we can always see what our main characters are doing, and combined with a couple of excellent one on one fights early on in the film, it is a masterpiece of choreography too.Miklos Rozsa's score is a simply brilliant orchestral piece which always seems like a perfect fit for a film of this kind. ( Also composed the incredible score for Ben-Hur ) Charlton Heston & Sophia Loren who play man and wife reportedly did not get along well during filming, yet their performance does not seem to suffer from this, and is enhanced a significant amount by Miklos Rozsa's amazing emotional score. Heston seems born to play these kind of roles in movie epics, and his performance and screen presence are once again an incredible sight to behold. Loren could have shown more emotion in a couple of scenes, yet due to their seemingly quite natural relationship in the film and her facial acting being pretty good this is just a slight defect. I do wish they visibly aged or changed Loren's look due to some circumstances that happen in the film though, it was a bit too out of character for her to look like porcelain all the way through. It is a film filled with beautiful scenes, and not a mediocre one among them. Whether it be beautiful outdoor scenery with epic landscape shots and massive moving extra's on the screen or beautiful indoor scenes with beautiful cinematography it is a film that manages to perform on a high level on a consistent basis throughout the film. Without spoiling anything, the final scene is just cinematic perfection where all points and everything that has happened before seemingly come together. It uses tragic events or reunions between established characters and Rozsa's score to create emotion, and a motion picture full of emotion it has become.With beautiful natural cinematography, excellent acting, a both triumphant and emotionally powerful score by Miklos Rozsa, beautifully staged battle scenes with great editing to create a good overview of the situation our characters are in, and a great central message about how one turns into a legend by leading his people to victory, El Cid is an incredible experience and should be considered as one of the greatest 'Epic' films ever made.

1950 to 1970 was without doubt the best time to epic films, had The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, Spartacus for example, and between them had El Cid, that even if you lower the 4 movies that I quoted, it is a good movie, the cast is good, especially the great Charlton Heston who in my opinion is the actor of the epic, he simply did Moses in the Ten Commandments, Judah Ben- Hur in Ben-Hur, and Rodrigo de Bivar in El Cid, and in this movie he makes a good performance, since Charlton Heston's just a good actor, the direction of Anthony Mann is good (I've always been interested in how it would be Spartacus if it had not been removed), the picture is beautiful the film beautiful moments, such as the scene El Cid the leper pro water in the desert, the action scenes are competent, and the script is also competent, even movie making historical errors (more Braveheart is full of errors, more it is nevertheless to be my favorite movie), El Cid is a good movie, not enough to be the best epic of all, more is a recommended film for the epic lovers. Note 7.6

Evidence that quantity does not mean quality. 180 minutes long, probably just so that it could earn the "epic" tag, this movie drags on an on, thanks to unnecessary side plots and details. Clearly not true to history - if El Cid and some of the other characters really acted in the way they did, and made the decisions they did, history would have been quite different. El Cid's adherence to certain (misplaced and misguided) honours and loyalties are laid on so thick, and stymie so many good ideas, that you start supporting his enemies.Plot-holes and random pointless twists abound.The acting is incredibly wooden, especially by Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren. The supporting cast aren't much better though.On the up side, the battle scenes are well done, cinematography is great and costumes look very authentic.

I loved it now as well as I loved it first time, when I saw it in the early sixties. Maybe more. It is an epic, perhaps not very accurate historically, still appealing. You see interesting director's solutions, attention to details. Heston and Loren are gorgeous and inspiring. Mass scenes would be quite cost prohibitive nowadays and be substituted by animations. Yes, it is long. But somehow I do not get tired. The dialogs, the music, the costumes, the scenery, the makeup - they used to take their time to do all of these things back in the day. I think El Cid can hold its own against any contemporary epic, without an exception.