Charleton Heston is Michaelangelo, Rex Harrison is Pope Julius II. Watch them go from fierce antagonists to squabbling brothers while Julius takes up the sword (and some magnificent armor) to fight off the French and German invaders. What is The Agony and the Ecstasy? It is the love of God, the love of something greater than a man and a woman. Or so then sort of hottie Diane Cilento finds out as her lifelong love for the painter goes unrequited.
This film is reasonably typical of the biblical/religious epics of the late ’50s and ’60s. Hell, it starts off with some kind of battle scene where there is no identification of who is fighting, or why, and we barely recognize that Heston is trying to carry a block of marble back to Rome for a Vatican statue. The politics exposed are farcical and bare only the slightest connection to what really happened in those years. Not to mention we are suppose to believe that a warrior pope would take the time to personally oversee a troublesome artist. Still, if you like your films on this kind of old-time larger than life scale, you might enjoy it.
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