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The Robe Movie Review

The Robe is a 1953 Biblical epic film directed by Henry Koster and starring Richard Burton and Jean Simmons. It is a very bloated, badly written movie.

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“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do“

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Marcellus, a tribune in Roman Military, commands a group to crucify Jesus Christ. After the event, Marcellus is haunted by nightmares. Then, he sets on a journey to learn more about the man he killed. On paper, this film sounds terrific. It was based on a respected novel, it deals with very interesting historical and religious themes and it received a grandiose production.

However, in execution the movie was anything but great. In fact, it’s one of the worst epic films from this era that I’ve seen so far. Let’s first start with the positives. The technical aspects are naturally arresting. It entirely deserved its wins for costumes and production design, especially the latter as some of the sets are just stunning to behold.

The score is also pretty good and the color cinematography is gorgeous. The movie has its epic action scenes and beautifully composed shots, though for the most part it’s a straightforward drama lacking in true spectacle. I also liked some of the performers. Burton is okay, but it is Jean Simmons who stole the show from everybody else with by far the best and least theatrical showing.

With that being said, other performances were so bad that they took away from the enjoyment of the movie significantly. A lot of the actors overacted the hell out of this film, resulting in a very dated viewing experience. There is also the issue of terrible dialogue. Some of it was well written, but the majority was not just over-the-top, but also ridiculously preachy and cringe-worthy in its hysterics.

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There are so many emotional outbursts in The Robe that it made the viewing experience very annoying. The script was also not good at all while the editing was horrendous with the movie feeling both bloated and weakly paced. It’s a shame that it turned out this way as the basic concept was excellent, but we only see flashes of solid execution of that premise in this misguided, undeservedly Oscar-nominated epic.

The Robe is a bloated, overly theatrical epic that lacks in true spectacle, but delivers in cringe-worthy dialogue and mostly poor acting performances. The technical aspects are outstanding – the costumes are great, the production design is phenomenal and some scenes are both gorgeously composed and very memorable – but the execution of its admittedly great premise was largely mediocre and unsubtle, which is a shame as it could have been so much better.

My Rating – 3