Desertman84 Imperium: Nero, the movie, is an apologetic TV movie, part of the Imperium series.It stars Hans Matheson as Nero together with Laura Morante,Rike Schmid,John Simm and Matthias Habich.It was directed by Paul Marcus.Imperium: Nero tells the tale of Nero's unlikely ascent to the throne, and his historical fall at the hands of his own vengeful kingdom. After murdering his sister's husband on grounds of conspiracy, the increasingly incoherent Caligula exiles his grieving sibling and sets into motion a devious plan that will one-day find her son Lucius presiding over all of Rome. Beset on all sides by tyranny and bloodlust, Lucius rises to power as Nero while facing the constant wrath of all who oppose his legacy. His paranoia soon reaching a fever pitch, Nero struggles to maintain power as his army, his people, and his own mother, ultimately turn against him.Imperium: Nero is a surprisingly entertaining historical TV movie.Also,the cast involved in it are brilliant.It was also absorbing from beginning to end and the viewer may find it to fast for being 3- hour long.Unfortunately,there are a lot of flaws in it historically and it fails to clearly examine the personality of Nero particularly his madness.Being an apologetic movie,it tries humanize the main character of the story and portray him more as a person with fallacies rather than an evil one.Overall,Imperium: Nero is a great view if one is to overlook historical inaccuracies and detail.

ma-cortes This mini-series describes first the emperor Caligula become himself nutty and proclaims senator his horse , kills his brother-in-law ( Nerone's father )and exiles his sister Agripina (Laura Morante) to far island. Caligula is murdered by his generals and succeeded Claudio , he married Mesalina who will cheat him with several lovers and then she is repudiated. After that, Claudio married Agripina . She convinces Claudio for heir to Nerone (Hans Matheson) marring him to Octavia, Claudio's daughter, and disinheriting his another son, Britanico . The Nerone empire (54-68) was under influence of Burro and stoic philosopher named Lucius Anneo Seneca( Matthias Habich) his sage and wise assistant but Agripina actually governs . Then she conspires against her son and Nero orders kill her along with Britanico . At the beginning years Nero empire were peaceful and prosperous but when he turned nut-head and supported by his favourite, the evil and ambitious Tijelinus , the governed with despotism , submitted the senate and committed atrocities , pursued Christians, murdered to Burro , Seneca ,Popea , senators(Ian Richardson, Simon Andreu).. becoming an authentic tyrant . Besides , he ordered firing the ancient Roma and Christians are accused and martyrized . Deprived emperor orders burn them on flaming cross and bear a cruel martyrdom . Later on, Nero is killed and was succeeded by Galba, and empire took a while for decadence and downfall. The film is the second episode of the ¨Imperium¨ series covering the Roman empire , the first was ¨Octavius Augustus¨ with Peter O'Toole and Charlotte Rampling (as Livia). The costume design and production design hold similar features than former production but have made good use of it. Setting are pretty nice , scenarios are spectaculars . The Roman Forum , Roman Capitol , temples are well designed . It's an European co-production made by numerous countries (Italy, France, Germany )and is shot in Tunisia. This television movie has epic action , love story , exciting drama, bloody gladiator combats in the arena and lots of crowd scenes , however the runtime is overlong and a little boring . Main actors interpretation is good, as Hans Matheson and Laura Morante but Nero personage belongs forever to Peter Ustinov ( Quo Vadis) . The picture is profitable for public tendency to ¨Sword and Sandals¨ genre re-initiated with ¨Gladiator¨ (Ridley Scott). The flick will appeal to Romans genre fans and history buffs.

Spike-in-Berlin "Nero" as the title of the movie is in Germany is a another attempt to show one of the most interesting Roman emperors, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, better known as Nero. Although this attempt at least tried to show a more historic accurate Nero than the amusing but completely fictitious Nero Peter Ustinov played in "Quo Vadis!" it still is a major failure. And to those IMDb-commentators who still believe that Sueton and Tacitus propaganda is true, please read a book about Nero that was published less than 20 years ago. Nero did NOT burn Rome, this is proved! He did not murder Britannicus. He did not torture, kill and maim for pleasure, he was the first emperor who BANNED the gladiator fights. The movie still shows a lot of mistakes, errors and is by the way made in a really cheap style, especially the sets were cheap and unconvincing, the palace looking like some villa, the city itself looked like..well like a cheap set. The acting was between good and sub-par, the music nearly insignificant and the movie soon deteriorated after Nero became emperor to a rushed, bad edited mess without any clear narrative structure. So there still is the potential for an epic biography of Nero that shows the true Nero, who was one of the best emperors who ruled Rome, despite the lies of Sueton et al.

prnfc OK, we all know that historical movies are full of inexactitudes, the list is so long, Troy was a disaster, and Brad Pitt acting was horrible, any movies done on Joan of arc was to laugh about, and so on and so on, so why review them pointing on how bad they are with respecting the real story? Sure I don't retain this movie as being Oscar material (then again I saw some winners worst than this movie), but it was entertaining, the set and costume were nice...The only shame was that it was entirely voiced over even for the English speaking actors, and I never get used to hear somebody familiar speak with another voice......