Roman empire reign of blood review năm 2024

Reviews 66% 50+ Ratings Avg. Audience Score Chronicling the reigns of ancient Roman leaders. Read More Read Less

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Reign of Blood 2016 Details Master of Rome 2018 Details Caligula: The Mad Emperor 2019 Details

The Roman Empire: Reign of Blood is Netflix’s 2016 foray into the ever-popular docudrama genre. Mixing cutscenes of violence, nudity and dialogue, with the opinion and insight of university professors, Reign of Blood tries desperately to balance the two, and strives to present a series on Rome that is engaging, exciting and yet still educational.

They may have tried, but the compromise they reach sometimes leaves you searching for more, and wondering what you had just sat through for just under an hour.

Reign of Blood charts the rise and fall of Commodus, the son and heir of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Commodus has been blamed in recent times for the fall of Rome, with his debauchery, alcoholism and lust for power and violence, being what some have identified as the downfall of Roman dominance. In an explicit and uncensored look at Commodus’ reign, it can feel, at points, that the creators may have tried too hard to make it gritty, sexual and violent, at the expense of accuracy and decent documentary writing. They even enlisted the narration of the legendary Sean Bean to provide some kind of gravitas, leading many reviewers to comment more on their astonishment that Sean Bean ‘didn’t die in this one’ than about their love for the series.

While this series may be more historically accurate than its constant comparison, Gladiator, this can sometimes become overshadowed by the drawn-out scenes of drama and dialogue. The majority of the first episode has Aaron Jakubenko, or Commodus, wandering around shirtless. While this may keep some of the that-way-inclined viewers watching, this level of unnecessary undress is a constant and pervasive issue that can cheapen and undermine the factual information and historian’s insight. With eminent classical professors and academics, including one of the foremost classical historians, Tom Holland, this series has no shortage of expertise and knowledge, although they often substitute this for poorly-written dialogue and drawn out cut scenes that could have been half as long.

Photo from: IMDb

The whole series is a narrative about the rise of an unstable and naive youth to become an emperor whose vices held him back and spelled his downfall. At times, and this may also be seen as an indictment of the entire series, it feels like a regurgitation of Gladiator, with many of the same characters used, and of course, much of the same story told. But the problem with this series is that its characterisation of these people doesn’t go far enough. If they are to include dialogue and try and dramatise the past, one needs to be invested in and engaged by the characters. In this series, the scenes are sometimes stretched with silent walking, kissing, or drinking, that lends nothing to the historical narrative nor the characterisation of the people. As one reviewer muses, in their attempt to balance drama and documentary, the creators ultimately fail to please fans in either camp. The historicity of the series is undermined by the fictionalisation of the events, and the drama cut short and intruded by the voices of professors and historians. This is not a documentary, as it is simply not rich enough in historical fact to warrant that title, but neither is it a historical drama, as the presence of the ‘talking heads’ makes that impossible.

However, while it may seem as if I am completely slandering the series and marking it off as a waste of time and an unworthy holder of any genre-title, there are some positives that come with it too.

As was attempted by the creators, the series is engaging, with the visuals striking and the violence arresting at points. They have done well to construct a series that will appeal to those interested in the period, and those just passing with an urge to watch something set in antiquity. It is watchable and will attract those with a casual interest or limited knowledge about the subject. This is one of the issues with modern docudramas and documentaries overall, that the mass marketing and public presentation of history has led to documentaries being nothing more than surface-scratchers or teases into the period. Anything more in depth or heavy are labelled as boring, unwatchable and audience-limiting. They almost need to substitute substance for aesthetic; anything to engage an audience and hold viewers. While this can be argued to be a positive and a negative, this series, nevertheless, engages and entertains.

Lucilla - Photo from Decider

Another positive is its accuracy in certain points. While there are countless faults in their historical content, and numerous inaccuracies in their presentation of certain people, their presentation of Lucilla, Commodus’ elder sister, and Cassius Dio, the great Roman historian, is surprisingly realistic. In Gladiator, Lucilla is presented as ‘an elegant patrician schemer still pining for her first love, a common but heroic soldier named Maximus’, as Decider describes her. In fact, she was a formidable, talented and well-connected potential empress who tried to assassinate her brother. This is the Lucilla presented in Reign of Blood. Played by Tai Berdinner-Blades, Reign of Blood’s Lucilla is ‘ever-pouting, constantly-scheming, brilliant political operative fond of plunging necklines’ as Decider continues. This rectification of the character of Lucilla from her presentation in Gladiator, does give Reign of Blood some credit.

They also present Cassius Dio as a man exhibiting just the intelligence and good judgement one would expect from a great classical historian of his stature and prominence. Played by Edgar Wright, this presentation of Dio may be fiction, as no one can truly know his character and personality, but is at the same time entirely plausible and understandable. This is also something this series manages to achieve; taking real people and giving them dialogue, no matter how poorly written and drawn out it may be, that seems feasible.

Commodus’ political career is interesting and exciting enough to make a series in itself, without the inclusion of the talking heads or the gratuitous sex scenes. Commodus frequently fought in the gladiatorial arena himself, and often presented himself as a god to his people in order to win their favour. Cleander, Commodus’ ex-slave, also started to hide grain to win support with the people, which opens unlimited potential for political intrigue, and that’s not even mentioning Lucilla’s betrayal of her brother and her assassination attempt on him. This natural excitement and mystery is undermined with terrible dialogue like, ‘It’s good to take a break from the Roman Empire with this simple, private, social lunch’, and ‘Why are we here?’ ‘Emperor, we are here for the glory of Rome!’ Any strive towards authenticity is cut short by the shaky script and some underwhelming CGI. The acting is admirable, therefore, when having to act in spite of the poor script.

This entire docudrama is a fascinating example of how modern tastes and agendas influences and forges the presentation of history and how we interact and understand the past. We can often see the past as exciting, full of intrigue and mystery, violent, dangerous and riveting. While this may be true at certain points, its interesting to see that hardly anyone mentions the few hundred years of peace where no real military campaigns were fought or emperors deposed. What we want to see dictates the history we learn. Reign of Blood is a fantastic example of this, with the era of Game of Thrones and Versailles driving a wave of what Adrian Goldsworthy calls ‘blood-and-boobs entertainment’ instead of ‘sword-and-sandal epics’.

This is also one of the lesser-covered periods, with the Julio-Claudians getting all the attention. Despite Gladiator, Commodus is very rarely ever presented in modern media. The question is, therefore, is he a worthy subject of a series or film? Yes, definitely. As mentioned before, his real life is exciting enough for a series by itself. Does Reign of Blood provide this outlet for the exploration of Commodus’ story? To a certain extent. It provides an engaging surface look at his life and career, and tries to dramatise it without compromising historicity, and yet falls when it tries to balance those. In short, it was a good attempt, but could have been better if the creators had tried to stick with one genre, and not try to incorporate two. They almost had to balance three aspects: talking heads, drama and narrator. This is a difficult task to accomplish, with the drama showing us what’s happening, the talking heads explaining it, and the narrator summarising it. This, at points, leads all three to say the same thing.

So, to conclude, Reign of Blood is a relatively good six-part series that probably should have been half as long, which substituted substance for aesthetic, with a poorly written script and some underwhelming visual effects. Historically, it rectifies some of the mistakes of films like Gladiator, but still lacks in full accuracy. In short, it tries hard, maybe too much so, and is saved by Sean Bean’s calm and warm, gravelly narration.

Is Roman Empire Reign of Blood accurate?

This is because, fictionalised as The Roman Empire: Reign of Blood might be, it's nonetheless quite historically accurate, to the point of being having scholars at times intruding the stream of events and offering comments and expert opinions.

Is Roman Empire worth watching?

Hardcore history and Rome buffs you won't miss much by passing on this. If you can keep yourself from dozing off during the 'acting' and want some uncommon tidbits of information on the life of Commodus it may be enough to watch the series to the end.

Is the Roman Empire Docuseries accurate?

You have to really look at this show as fiction, not as historically accurate. Despite the talking head historians, this show is at best loosely based on history, playing up the more scandalous rumours and often just making things up. That said, it's a fairly entertaining watch.

Is the Netflix series Roman Empire a documentary?

Roman Empire is a television docudrama based on historical events of the Roman Empire. The show is in the anthology format with each season presenting an independent story. Season 1, "Reign of Blood", is a six-part story about Emperor Commodus.