SPARTACUS - blood, sand and bollocks

Phil, sadly, has to plug the fact that he runs wine tours in Auckland.

There was a lot of advance PR blurb and publicity about this new TV series, which premiered on Sky TV’s (appropriately perhaps) Box Channel 5 last night.

‘Spurt-a-cuss’ could be a more appropriate name – as there is lots of effing and blinding by the cast, in addition to the much-touted nudity. And yes - boobs, pubes and diddles were gratuitously on display. Ho hum.

Sadly, the production values and acting were more B grade than I had hoped. A few NZ actors in there seemed a bit out of place – like Craig Parker (no relation) as a Roman general, but looking a bit like someone at a fancy dress party.

The Romans speak like pretendy upper class Brits and say stuff like “The Gedi are massing – in vast numbers in the east. We must vanquish them before afternoon tea. What-what?”

Thracians speak like Flight of the Conchords (Unless they are Spurt-a-cuss – who as a US accent.)

And Gedi (as far as I could tell), generally say things like “Huarrrgh!” Or “Gaaahhhhh!” Or “Blurrrrgh!” as they get dismembered in slow motion, and spurt sheets of Computer Generated Image (CGI) gore in a direct rip-off of 300 the movie.

Spartacus seems to be an uneasy blend of cartoony CGI imagery and standard Swords ‘n’ Sandals epic. To be honest, I gave up after the first 15 minutes and went to bed to read a damn fine spy novel.