Leofwine_draca HANNIBAL is an average kind of sword and sandal epic put out by the Italians. It lacks the budget to do justice to the big historical battles and it gets bogged down in some tacked-on romantic melodrama which I don't remember reading about in the histories, but at least it looks colourful and exciting. Victor Mature plays the Carthaginian general who leads his army across the Alps to attack Rome, and yes, he brings his elephants along. There are only two or three scenes with said elephants but they're handled very well and the best parts of the picture. This is the kind of film which is entertaining when depicting action but slightly dull for the rest of the time. Terence Hill and Bud Spencer star, years before they went on to be big names in the spaghetti western genre.

Kirpianuscus it has the virtues and the sins of the genre. and Victor Mature. if you do not like the stories of Sandals and Fights, you have a lot of critics against it. a fact far to be fair because not the historical accuracy or the realism of battle scenes are the purpose but a form of entertainment, giving a nice - but not credible love story- and few moral virtues in the right package. so, it is not real easy to ignore its charm, naive in many scenes, the good intentions, the effort of Gabriele Ferzetti to do a reasonable Roman senator portrait and Rita Gam, not the most inspired Sylvia but looking for the decent way to propose a credible character. so, a nice film. predictable but far to be bad.

wmjahn I like Victor MATURE and would even go as far as to call myself a "fan" of this Arnold Schwarzenegger-predecessor/archetype (with Austrian roots actually), but even I have to admit, that this flick ain't any of his better ones, unfortunately (sigh).It's awkward from beginning to end: The first scene takes place in the Roman Senate, then you have a long one with the elephants crossing the Alps (that's probably the best of the whole picture, actually you can now turn off your TV-set) and now we're already well over 5 minutes into the picture, still no Hannibal/Annibale. Suddenly one sees some elephants getting loose and a guy which we can identify on second look as Victor Mature does some awkward gestures to get the elephants away. Pretty strange entry for "the hero". Only in scene number 4 and well 10 minutes into the movie someone takes the chance to identify our hero and calls him with his name. OK, the introduction of "the hero" has been managed, somehow.The ending is equally abrupt, we see Hannibal's army moving along and get a voice over. Obvioulsly the directors (Edgar G. Ulmer usually does it better, but I assume he didn't have much to say in this one) had decided that enough celluloid had been "wasted" and called it a day.The dialog is so unsophisticated, it hurts, but still not unintentionally funny, only hammy and boring, witless.Everything in this picture is unfortunately mediocre to sub-par: ahead and foremost the script, but also acting (Victor is certainly also already too old for the role, sorry), photography, whatever. Only the music by Carlo RUSTICHELLI is slightly better, of course he's no Miklos ROSZA either, but at least the music is fitting and powerful. But that does not justify sitting through the whole picture (enjoy the main theme and quit).For Terence HILL Fans it is worth mentioning that Mario GIROTTI, later known as TH, has a medium large part here and you can watch him "acting" (woodenly, but so what) a Roman.So my rating is: If you are a Victor Mature fan: 4 out of 10, if you are a Terence Hill fan: 3 out of 10, if you're neither nor: 2 out of 10, so better stay away.I wish I could have written a better review. :-(

anthony-mclaughlin This film was good, it followed the series of battles from 218 to 216 BC which culminated in Hannibal's victorious, heavy defeat of the biggest ever assembled Roman Army of 80,000 (Battle of Cannae).This film even mentions the siege of Saguntum (Rome's Ally in Spain) which brought on the second Punic War when the Carthaginian senate refused to surrender Hannibal Barca to them.After briefly showing the events of the Battle of Trebia (December 218BC) and the battle of Lake Trasimene (June 217BC) there are political scenes involving both the Carthaginians and the Romans as Fabius Maximus tries to persuade the Roman senate not to engage Hannibal in open battle, rather skirmish and harass.Victor Mature played Hannibal well, but the only element which was wrong with this film was that it did not appear to command the same budget available for it's production as The 300 Spartans or Spartacus (in particular had) so the battle of Cannae, Hannibal's finest hour (or hours) did not come across as the battle would have done.The reason for this is that they would have needed to assemble AT LEAST 130,000 extras in order to portray the events at Cannae. However, they still managed to assemble a lot of extras for the battle scene, just not nearly as much as 130,000 Aside from this minor flaw, I LOVED IT.