A helluva lot better than Tom Jones

After 30+ years as a film buff, I finally braved the whole four-hour enchilada -- albeit in two segments -- and I must say it is much better than I expected. The only real flaw was a script that, on the one hand, had a surfeit of unnecessary dialogue-for-dialogue's-sake that didn't serve much purpose and, on the other hand, compromised some important points of plot and character motivation (perhaps fleshed out more in the six-hour original). Yet I was never bored. The direction was superbly competent and surprisingly un-hokey, and there were some really interesting and unusual details. Harrison was excellent, as was McDowell. Taylor was very good and conveyed Cleopatra's immense charisma brilliantly -- you can see why these men fell for her as hard as they did. Even Richard Burton, whose performance was far from his best, had his moments. Alex North's score (except for one really bad segment that had a totally anachronistic jazz-like feel to it) added immeasurably to the experience. Finally, saving the best for last, the visuals. Oh my, those visuals! Cinematography, production design, art direction, costumes -- sumptuous from start to finish. If you see it, it must be in Hi-Def on as big a screen as possible.

EDIT: Oh, about that subject line. 1963 was not exactly a great year for English-language movies, so I guess that Tom Jones -- being something of a groundbreaker in terms of cinematic style -- was regarded as the best of the bunch. But I've never really cared for it.