This is a perplexing film. For all of its ambition, it falls to pieces regularly. There are moments of beauty and spectacle, but never long enough to stick; moments of humor and sentiment are brief and forced. There is no suspense, no real sex, no warmth and ultimately, no heart. One can be impressed, but not moved. For all the fashionable dumping on Hollywood, American pictures of this era, even when stupid, never reached the bleak, impersonal aridity of this epic.
