Historically speaking, "Caesar and Cleopatra" is not especially good. In particular, it shows Cleopatra VII (the famous one) as a very, very weak woman who needs good 'ol Julius Caesar to come along and teach her how to be an autocrat. In the meantime, she is a wishy-washy woman who even lets her servants mistreat her. In reality, Cleopatra was a pragmatic woman--and a scary one at that. Her brother stood in her way, so she had him killed--not exactly the behavior you'd expect from the cute version of Cleo you see in this film, that's for sure! If it wasn't for this, the film also suffered in several other ways. The dialog was pretty awful--stilted, silly and utterly ridiculous. And, the acting, at times, was pretty bad. Julius Caesar was played more like Santa Claus than a world dictator! And, why have a 30-something year-old woman play a lady who should have been about 14.
The bottom line is that the history teacher in me disliked the film, but even if this was not a problem, the characters and dialog were pretty bad. It looked nice...but was pretty bad.
The bottom line is that the history teacher in me disliked the film, but even if this was not a problem, the characters and dialog were pretty bad. It looked nice...but was pretty bad.