Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

arthur_tafero Hannibal is a victim of extremely poor production values, horrendous Italian directors, and even worse Italian actors. Mature does his best to salvage the film, but it is as hopeless as the war between Rome and Carthage, which would end with the complete destruction of Carthage after its third and final disastrous war against Rome. The great Italian directors and actors excelled in neorealism. This film is about as far from realism as you can get. The corny love story subplot only worsens the film with an ugly B Italian actress. Almost every great Italian film ever made, with the exception of modern Tornatore films, like the great Cinema Paradiso and a few others since the post-1980s, have been in black and white. This turkey had a hack director, hack actors, and hack production values that tried to use visual violence and gore in place of acting, directing and a script. It is a mess. I wrote a book on Italian Cinema (The Development of Italian Cinema).The book analyzes the great Italian neorealism period immediately following WW2 and lasting for two decades before Fellini and other great Italian directors took over the transition to modern films. Hannibal was not part of the process; it was a hack project from the start. Don't waste your time with this junk.

bkoganbing If you were to ask what Hannibal is most famous for today, the first thing that would cross your mind is the crossing of the Alps. That is if you hadn't seen Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal the cannibal. It's a feat that excites the imagination of the world and has only really been duplicated one time, by Jose de San Martin taking his army of liberation over the far more rugged Andes in the South American wars for freedom against Spain. It was that which excited the imagination of the ancient world and held the Italian peninsula in terror.But what was the climax of his life is the beginning of the film Hannibal which starred Victor Mature in the title role. The first 15 minutes of the film find Hannibal doing just that with the Romans relaxing their guard and saying he's trying the impossible. After that the road to Rome seems open and unguarded.However then the majority of this film is devoted to a fictional love story between Mature and the niece of a Roman Senator played by Rita Gam. A whole lot of his top people think that Mature is neglecting his obligations to the army and Carthage for her. It's causing quite a bit of dissension and the film would be over, but for the politicking in the Roman Senate affecting their command structure. Eventually Hannibal's wife Milly Vitale and young son show up forcing Mature to make some choices. Rita Gam makes one of her own as well.I would have liked to have seen more the real Hannibal story, warts and all because he wasn't the nicest guy in the world, but a brilliant military strategist who later met up with a better one named Scipio, but that's way after the action in this film.Mature is a stalwart Hannibal and the battle scenes and the crossing the Alps scenes are well staged. But the overall plot leaves a lot to be desired.

the_bernie This makes a good addition to the Victor Mature section of your film library. But I was mostly disappointed in just about all the aspects. First the music in the background did not match the situation. Then the movie starts in the middle of Hannibal's life as he started over the mountains if you do not know the history then you will be lost thru the movie. The dubbed voices reminded me of the voices in "Fractured Fairy tales." The were all sort of squeaky and of course as in the tradition of dubbed Italian movies did not match the speech timing. The one exception was Victor he would show the right or left profile and read his likes perfectly. I don't know how he kept a straight face. By the way he was 45 at this time. After he makes it over the mountains it becomes a love story between Hannibal and Sylvia the niece of the Roman determined to do Hannibal in. Even Hannibal's men think they are in trouble because Hannibal is gaw gaw over a Roman girl. Here uncle thinks she is a traitor but still loves her like a daughter.A few wars with some so so elephant scenes and a lot of obviously fake blood. Hannibal's ex turns up and Sylvia runs off. Will Hannibal and Sylvia ever get their lives together? Who wins the war? Why did they stop the story so abruptly?

pninson This Italian production is hardly in the same league as Spartacus or even The 300 Spartans, but despite its laughable dialogue, wooden acting, and clumsy dubbing, it has a certain intensity. I did laugh out loud at some of the swordfighting, in which actors are clearly waving their sticks around without any knowledge of what to with them, other than to hit the other actor's stick. And Victor Mature may have been an early 60s idea of a rugged hero, but the greasy kid stuff does him in (to say nothing of his extremely limited range).As for historical accuracy ... well, never mind that. This has very little to do with actual historical events. The romantic subplot is an invention (at least they got somebody really great to look at for the love interest), and Hannibal's speeches about freedom from hate and revenge are absurd if you know anything about the period.In spite of all these flaws, I found the photography to be mostly excellent, especially in the battle scenes and the crossing of the Alps. There's a curious, cheesy intensity to some of these sequences that makes the film compelling at times.Several notches below The Colossus of Rhodes, but better than Demetrius and the Gladiators.