ABSTRACT
In this way, the films were sold on the promise that they presented action of fantastic proportions: battles, earthquakes and floods. However, it is one of the ironies of these films that they are not only attacked on the grounds that their action was too excessive but also for simply being dull. Many critics have complained about their length (a running time of between three and four hours was not uncommon), and have also claimed that their focus on spectacle makes these films very slow moving; that they endlessly fetishise the details of the past that the studios had so painstakingly and expensively reconstructed.
