Sign of the Cross Review

I liked this movie a lot more than I thought I would.  I liked that it was in black-and-white because I felt like color might have distracted the viewer from the ideals of the story, but there was also a lot of effects and the music made the story feel fast paced and dynamic. I was not expecting the amount of violence in this movie, it felt gratuitous to me even by today's modern standards. My favorite editing scene was the scene from Marcus’s dinner when the director is showing us scenes of blatant Roman indulgence and then we get a shot of Mercia through a woman's hair being pulled apart. I also liked the very first scene where Nero is sitting on his throne watching Rome burn and then shot lowers from his throne to where people are cowering underneath his feet. The thing I liked least about this movie was Marcus’s character. I felt like he just wanted Mercia, not for who she was as a person, but as a prize (which Mercia acknowledged herself). So when he decided to walk into the area with Mercia at the end of the movie I felt like it was serving the purpose of the plot and the ideal of sacrifice but didn’t really match up with his character.