Spartacus: The Complete Collection [Blu-ray] [US Import]

Entertaining

Spartacus is a stylised telling of the story of the slave who broke his shackles and rose up against the might of the Roman Empire. This is a larger-than-life tale, told with exaggerated visuals: men winning often against the odds, shown in slow-mo with heart-pumping electric guitar accompaniment, and more blood than I've ever seen in a TV show before. The action is over-the-top, but it's a good over-the-top, with exciting, visceral fight choreography and quality photography and editing.The writing, too, is decent, with the creators having gone for a poetic and semi-archaic feel which serves the intense drama of the show well while being pleasing on the ear.It's an ugly tale, however, wherein ugly things happen. Suffering and terrible plots are the order of the day, and few smell of roses. The harsh life of those under the yoke of Rome is portrayed with bitter earnestness, as is the suffering on both sides that results directly from the rebellion. For all its visual extravagance and wry embellishment, this is still a show where the characters' actions and ultimate limitations are rooted in the grim reality of a grim world, where for many there is little chance of a happy life.The very first episode is not that great and it takes a couple to get going, but it is easy to quickly be sucked into the trials and tribiulations of House Batiatus (the man himself played brilliantly by John Hannah, and his devoted wife equally well by Lucy Lawless) and the gladiators that spar there. Andy Whitfield is the man who plays Spartacus in the first season; sadly he succumbed to cancer and from Season 2 onwards was replaced by Liam McIntyre. The change is not too jarring, and McIntyre does a commendable job filling the sandals of the Thracian.Craig Parker, Haldir from the Lord of the Rings films, is a compelling presence as the high-ranking military official Gaius Claudius Glaber, who starts the ball rolling with his taking of Spartacus and his wife into slavery. He remains a gripping antagonist, as in the final season does Simon Merrells as the driven, ruthless and spectacularly rich Marcus Crassus. The female characters also hold interest, with Viva Bianca in particular putting in a delightful turn as the devious wife of Glaber and Lawless perfect in the role of the other half of the Batiatus duo (now there's a formidable and terrifying marriage unit).This show outdoes Game of Thrones on the violence and sex counts. It doesn't outdo it on quality, story intricacy or character depth, but it serves wonderfully as an extremely watchable programme to get the fists and the blood pumping. It has few pretensions but fulfills its brief admirably, with the sense at the very end of it all of having followed an epic tale, at times stirring, grim and moving and normally exciting.The Blu-rays in Spartacus: The Complete Collection do justice to some of the magnificent visuals in the show, and generally look and sound fantastic. Extras are generous - each season has a number of featurettes with interviews, and commentaries on the majority of episodes. There's a lot to get through, but the creators' obvious enthusiasm for their programme make most of the extra materials an entertaining and interesting investment of time.Overall, a gripping package and a unique show that is well worth checking out for those curious. Watch the prequel mini-season as it was broadcast - between the first and second full seasons - for maximum impact.

Bought for a present good value

You’ll get little but praise from me for this Spartacus boxset. For fans of DVD extras these are sparsely added, and in the final series omitted entirely. I know nothing about cut scenes, so can’t comment on those. For me, a BD set that’s yours for a bargain price can’t really be argued with.With those elements out of the way it’s on to the series itself. Imagine the violence of 300 dialled up to 3000. The visceral aspects and ‘sexposition’ of Game of Thrones notched up considerably. The arena based brutality of Gladiator taken to an ultimate level of gore. Spartacus is a show designed to give the announcers who make pre-exhibition warnings about nudity, bad language and violence more work to do. It’s nasty, curse-heavy, loaded with naked bodies of both sexes, sprays the screen with blood at all times. In other words, a television experience that amounts to the absolute opposite of something for squeamish viewers to enjoy. Anyone expecting an update of that nice Kirk Douglas movie are in for a surprise.Fortunately, Spartacus has a lot more going for it than its 18 certificate qualities. It works hard to portray ancient Rome as a world where life was cheap, and violence commonplace and brutish, but it also gives a reasonable description of the other key aspects – the system of patronage, the clear differences between classes, the importance of gladiatorial spectacle in keeping the masses under heel. There is a subtle change to language, to the way people speak, elevating the dialogue to almost Shakespearean levels, a level of Latin formality creeping in to even casual banter between slaves. The show does a very good job of showing how far, say, Batiatus sits above the gladiators, and yet even he – literally with the power of life and death over his slaves – is small potatoes compared to Glaber, the Praetor whose patronage he desperately seeks, while in turn Glaber is below the likes of Crassus in the complicated political order of the Republic. All this is done without getting bogged down in the detail or becoming boring. The characters’ motivations, their efforts to improve their lots, are a reality of life. To them their place in the social order is everything.Enter Spartacus, a wrecking ball within the Roman world because he represents everything that’s opposed to the establishment. If you make the argument that the first series is the best then in part it’s because Andy Whitfield added layers of intensity and motivation to the character that was simply absent in later years. Welsh born Whitfield played Spartacus as a broiling figure of resentment and fury, smart too but what you remember is the anger that defined every sword thrust on the training sand, each glower at Crixus, the sheer hatred that washed off the screen with the moments he came across Glaber. A sadness; Whitfield was diagnosed with cancer after completing filming of the first season. While waiting for their star to recover, Starz produced a prequel series, only for his condition to resurface and claim his life. There was no choice but to recast the part, Liam McIntyre taking over for the last two seasons. A little like the time Jason Connery replaced the departing Michael Praed in Robin of Sherwood, the show was never the same again. McIntyre played a decent leader of men, but Whitfield was all wrath and fire and that quality was gone.The other actor who made the first series such a success was John Hannah, playing Batiatus as an aspiring Lanista with all the ambition, street language and underhandedness that made the character so compelling and fun. Hannah appeared to appreciate that Batiatus was one rung above street level and performed him that way – foul mouthed and scheming, though always impishly charismatic. Together with Lucy Lawless as his equally Machiavellian wife, they were a modern take on Macbeth and his Lady, unafraid to get their hands dirty and only redeemable at all because they loved each other. Hannah got to reprise his character for the prequel series, and as with Whitfield something was lost when he departed. Craig Parker’s Glaber was a fine villain, prone to moments of extreme violence, but the show missed Hannah’s earthy charms. Lawless was superb, and matched by the increasingly brilliant Viva Bianca as Glaber’s sexed up, ingratiating wife. As Crixus, Manu Bennett was chosen for his physicality but added smoulder. Peter Mensah made for a statuesque Oenomaus, while Dustin Clare got in a likeable turn as Gannicus, former champion and now a lover of wine and women.All these characters were real people, or at least interpretations of actual historical figures. Many of the events depicted in the show really happened, or did so according to contemporary writers, with enough information rendered vague for Starz to fill in the blanks. Where Spartacus differs from reality is in its reinvention of its main character as a hero bent on freeing other slaves and overthrowing Rome. His real interests lay in escaping, at any cost, with much brutality undertaken in the effort, which makes his attempt to keep captured Romans alive in the final series a fanciful and very unlikely one.The show’s shortfall comes in some of its digital effects work. Spartacus clearly did not have the funding of HBO offerings like Rome or Game of Thrones; either that or its ambition did not match its production costs (Rome was infamous for building up to battles, only to cut away in order to save money). Sometimes, it looks cheap. It also takes a few episodes to really get going. Impressions left by the first instalment, which shows how Spartacus becomes a gladiator, can be unfavourable and come across as plugging the weak narrative with blood and sex. But stick with it. With the death of a major supporting character halfway through the first series, after he had been carefully developed, the show exhibited a willingness to up its own stakes, to demonstrate the dangerous arena in which Spartacus was now embroiled. It was a turning point and it never looked back.While not quite up to the standards of Game of Thrones, a level of quality that it did not intend to meet, Spartacus remains good fun, compelling, and at its best in a ‘boxset’ format. I think it’s thrilling entertainment, even if the quality drops ever so slightly after its sublime first series and prequel.

Highly recommend this to watch.Great quality too.

Great series