May 26, 2026

Pretty rousing and undoubtedly a gorgeous piece of classic spectacle. Not as enamored with its depiction of queerness as a symptom of decadence, especially since it bumps up so poorly with the larger thread of individualism here, but you can't have everything. Would've been down for those two schemers having a fight to the death. The lead's chin dimple looks like the Sarlacc if you see this in 70mm.

Maya

I audibly gasped when the hero chopped a guy's hand off and it spurted blood because I didn't think movies were allowed to do that back then

Iris

I can see why this feels like for-hire work when you look at the director's filmography but when compared to other old-fashioned analog epics this is honestly among the more beautiful and intimate of them with finely-tuned performances from some reliable greats and insanely gorgeous spectacle sequences that simply serve to amplify the material, which was clearly inspired by blacklisting and is very emotionally engaged with its basic ideas of class solidarity and spectacle/violence as both tool of entertainment and revolution. What an ending too! With the path of literal and ideological freedom lined with corpses. Glad I decided to blindly pick up the new 4K blu-ray (one of the best-looking ones I've seen so far tbh) and finally get around to this one.

Talia

Simply the greatest epic film of all time. Period.

Avery