For part two of this up to now disappointing three-part miniseries, there is a bunch of ancient Egyptian ritual thrown in that will baffle many viewers when it comes out of nowhere between Nicholas Clay and Franco Nero. There's a bit more shaking from Vesuvius going on, and more romantic Intrigue, but the plot lines are very bizarre errand rather pornographic when clay has this supposed out of body experience involving Egyptian demons. I couldn't believe that I was watching something that aired on network TV in the mid-1980's, and the acting was on a level that reminded me of the infamous "Caligula" made just a few years before this.
If it's not that, I was laughing unintentionally at the performance of Ned Beatty, a great character actor who continuously seems out of place in this, now starting to act a bit like a Roman era Lou Costello. The strange thing is that his character is not supposed to be funny in the least, closer to his role and the classic movie "Network" where his performance was shockingly dark. The persecution of the Christians gets darker in this episode, historically accurate and often scary. Nero place a truly evil character, but he is so mellow in his performance that is easy to see why his character succeeds in all of his manipulations.
The ensemble cast does what they can to keep the energy going, but it gets very slow during all of these exposition scenes. Still, it's always fascinating to watch actors like Brian Blessed, Anthony Quayle, Siobhan McKenna and guest star Laurence Olivier do their thing. This was far too ambitious of a project, filled with too many ideas and too many characters, causing it to drag and often get confusing, and the good stuff involving Vesuvius hasn't even happened yet. I guarantee if I had tried to watch this when it first aired when I was in my twenties, I would not have made it easily towards the end, let alone through part 2.
If it's not that, I was laughing unintentionally at the performance of Ned Beatty, a great character actor who continuously seems out of place in this, now starting to act a bit like a Roman era Lou Costello. The strange thing is that his character is not supposed to be funny in the least, closer to his role and the classic movie "Network" where his performance was shockingly dark. The persecution of the Christians gets darker in this episode, historically accurate and often scary. Nero place a truly evil character, but he is so mellow in his performance that is easy to see why his character succeeds in all of his manipulations.
The ensemble cast does what they can to keep the energy going, but it gets very slow during all of these exposition scenes. Still, it's always fascinating to watch actors like Brian Blessed, Anthony Quayle, Siobhan McKenna and guest star Laurence Olivier do their thing. This was far too ambitious of a project, filled with too many ideas and too many characters, causing it to drag and often get confusing, and the good stuff involving Vesuvius hasn't even happened yet. I guarantee if I had tried to watch this when it first aired when I was in my twenties, I would not have made it easily towards the end, let alone through part 2.
