Cleopatra (1963)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

4 hours and 11 mean minutes. It looks good, the palette is very soft and pleasant to the eye even though Roman garb and decor is gaudy it's not obnoxiously taking over unlike every other Roman movie. The score is nice but a little tiresome and distracting from the dialogue. Preformed very well by a cast full of legends, Richard Burton hits all the notes, Taylor comes off a little hammy to me in this but is fine. She's ridiculously good in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf and that's the first thing she's in that I watched. Direction is very meticulous. That being what it all is at times (I understand it was released '63) it needed to move. There's a reason it was cut to 3hr12min for theatrical release. This anniversary edition run time is trying.

What does it take for someone to rate this epic motion picture 1/10 ? Well, you could ask "valgreet" who says the movie is "Just about unwatchable". That IMDb member of 12 years has, in that time, reviewed only about as many flicks. I think it is a shame that the absurd 1/10 rating should appear. Over several decades, I've watched a few thousand movies, and have reviewed hundreds, here on IMDb and elsewhere. There is NO way anyone could possibly justify a rating below 7/10, all factors considered. A rating of 1/10 or 2/10 is especially vicious, I feel. "Cleopatra" is a landmark film, especially noteworthy in many areas, and certainly not just for the presence of Burton and Taylor. It is a picture that any serious moviegoer needs to see, preferably on as large a screen as possible. 9/10.

Really two films in one, the first being vastly superior to the second, more famous half. Before the intermission, the initial two hours of this historical drama focuses on Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison) and his relationship with the titled Queen of Egypt (Elizabeth Taylor). The tempestuous (love affair and) relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony (Richard Burton), though it may have been fascinating to audiences of the time given the off-screen affair between these stars, is much less compelling, even boring, making the overall film only slightly above average despite its limitless budget which helped it earn four Oscars: Color Art Direction-Set Decoration, Cinematography, Costume Design, and Special Effects.Only Harrison's acting was Oscar nominated, and rightfully so, as his is easily the best performance in the film, which was also nominated for Best Picture, Editing, Sound, and substantially original Musical Score. Harrison was to win the Best Actor Oscar playing Henry Higgins (in his next film, My Fair Lady (1964)), a character whose attitude towards women was not unlike Caesar's.Another noteworthy performance was given by Roddy McDowall, as Caesar's heir Octavian, in the film's second half, the best scene of which is his dressing down by Cleopatra near its end.Directed and co-written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, this 4+ hour version also boasts a cast which includes Hume Cronyn and Martin Landau, among others. If not for the director's (or editor's?) proclivity for showing every lead character's prolonged entrance and exit (to showcase the expensive sets?), the film could easily run nearer to 3 hours, as one released version does.

For some strange reason, I have watched Joseph L. Mankiewicz' Cleopatra (1963) twice. That's 8 hours out of, at present time, about 450k.If you're picking up an unimpressed vibe, well . . . This elephantine mess of a historical epic cum romance is impressive only if the viewer simply marvels at the eye-popping scope of the story of the pairings of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra and Marcuus Antonius and said same Egyptian queen. Mankiewicz creates the Eastern Mediterranean and Imperial Rome, 2,000 years ago, and the viewer has to marvel at the skill of the art directors before CGI. But, with the 1962 amount of about a bajillion dollars spent (100 bajillion now?), you'd hope for something more than a shrill and tedious star vehicle wherein Richard Burton, Roddy McDowall, and, of course, the coarse Elizabeth Taylor chew up the scenery as fast as the set builders can replace it.Burton looks desperate for some real alcohol in one of those Jacuzzi-sized chalices you see in costume dramas, McDowall simpers and swishes as a very femmie/bitchy Octavian, and Rex Harrison, the only reason to watch, even though he dies before the two-hour mark, makes Caesar something the others aren't, a real man. Real, as in, believable.It's Taylor who makes you stop the Netflix playback to see just how much time is left on this awful thing. Under ginormous eyelashes and head dresses, almost baring a butt cheek here and a breast there, and shrieking and clawing with her voice alone, Liz makes you think of what Peggy Noonan says Hillary Clinton sounds like--your landlady yelling down the stairs to remind you to clean up after your dog.Taylor, the "most beautiful woman in the world," is a thoroughly unsympathetic character. What kills Cleopatra isn't a broken heart, a loss of her throne, or a snake in her fruit cup, it's that we simply don't care about her, or for that matter, anyone, besides good ol' Rex.And with that said, I'll bring this back to the lost 8 hours in 2 viewings--once in the 80s and once this last week. When I first saw Cleopatra, I rented it in VHS form from my local video rental shop. It was full screen. If you don't understand the difference between full screen and wide screen, just think of it this way. Full screen on an old TV has a visual ratio of 1.33 to 1, the view from side to side is 1/3 greater than the height of the picture. Wide screen-- or letterbox--mimics human sight, including peripheral vision. It's about 2.35 to 1. Get it? Wide screen?When you watch a wide screen movie in full screen, you lose about 40% of the picture the movie maker wanted you to see. It's a major irritant to annoying purists like me. I want to see the whole thing.Because Cleopatra is in some sort of super-d-duper wide screen, I felt ripped off watching the squished version, even with good scan and pan (the editor who transfers the film to a full screen format scans the image for important action and dialogue, then pans over to capture it).Another purist toothache.I wanted to see all of Burton's blustering and pounding his shield, McDowall swishing and shirking, and Taylor flapping those eyelashes and almost having a soapy boob pop out of the bathwater.I wanted to see the whole tit and kaboodle.Unfortunately, the wide screen version didn't add anything. I just sat there wondering why I didn't see a custodian pushing a Swiffer around some polished Egyptian floor waaaay off on the left.I should have known better. I should have stuck with the VHS version.I should have settled for 60% of the kaboodle.