Sunday, February 27, 2011

Spartacus: Blood and Sand

Hey bloggers! For my first blog ever I would like to review a television show that I actually enjoyed. Now not all my blogs will be about television shows, some might be about something as simple as Oust air cleaner (I Just looked to my right and saw a can.. the review is now in the works!) or even something along the lines of a strip joint. As the title states, these reviews are 100% random and will stay that way for as long as i continue to blog! Anyways, let's move along to the review i have for you today!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1442449/


Spartacus Blood and Sand is a television show based upon the gladiators of ancient rome, and the lifestyle of the people who lived in a Ludus. The show mainly focus' on one gladiator known as Spartacus (Andy Whitfield), who is a Thracian war slave, taken by Gaius Claudius Glaber (Craig Parker) and put up for execution in the arena. Although after a glorious turn of events, Spartacus manages to best the four gladiators sent to kill him and he ends up being purchased by Quintus Lentulus Batiatus, (John Hannah) where he joins the ranks of his gladiators and fights in the arena. Thats the shows start summed up in a nut shell, but you get the gist of it! To be honest, I started watching this show with pretty low expectations. From what I had seen already the show seemed quite bleak and well basically pointless. However, after watching the episodes in the correct order, and watching all of them, i was delighted to find out that this ancient roman show actually had quite the story and it was full of actual meaningful relationships! It was great to get that feeling from a show, not often do you find yourself drawn into the characters of a show that has a main focus of blood, gore, and fighting. For instance Spartacus' friendship with a fellow gladiator named Varro (Jai Courtney) was actually acted out so well and had such an impacting part of the story that i didn't want to see it end. I also enjoyed how two faced half of the roman population is. I feel as if that portrayal suits the time period quite perfectly, it seems as if everyone would do anything to anyone to get ahead in the world. However one thing about this show that wasn't really welcomed in my eyes was the way it was shot. Spartacus is treated with a slightly "overexposed" video stylization, which is quite similar to the movie 300. Now in small bits this can be nice and intriguing to the eye, but in this show it felt almost dragged out, and it was as if every fight actually lasted 5 minutes, but instead of watching a 5 minute fight you were sitting there for 15 minutes watching the whole thing in slow motion. That brings me to another thing actually, the fights. The fights were done beautifully! The sword and shield work in Spartacus is fantastic, definitely a joy to watch. The various weapons used by gladiators made it quite interesting. All in all i have to admit the show was really good and I had no problem sitting through the 13 episodes it posses', in fact at times I was stammering to my computer to play another one right as the previous one ended! (Yes it actually can be that addicting at times) Also the season finale was beyond awesome, I won't spoil anything for you but everyone has to love an episode called "Kill em All".

Personal Rating of Spartacus Blood and Sand: 4 Slow motioned fights out of 5!

Well that concludes my first Random Review! Hopefully it interested you enough to get you to come back!

T Money Ouuuutt!

4 comments:

  1. I always shiver when history is adapted to be used on the TV... Always end up with more bashing and smashing and drama and less facts :/

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  2. Good show, I've caught some parts of it and my dad's pretty dedicated to it. I still think it pales in comparison to Rome from HBO, but I'm more of an intrigue kind of guy than a bashy smashy one.

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