This late-entry peplum is a bit of an insipid movie that contains nothing you won't have seen elsewhere if you're a fan of the genre. It starts off with random scenes of stock footage, huge pitched battles that make little sense because you have no idea what's going on or who is supposed to be who. After ten minutes the film settles down into a more predictable storyline as our rugged hero, Darius, is tasked with investigating some missing gold. He soon finds the barbarians of the title are responsible, although the real traitors lie within Rome itself.
The film follows a very routine storyline. There's some talk, then a fight scene, then talk, then a battle, and so on. This becomes very apparent in the last half hour which is just one fight after another. There's also a little romance thrown in, which I didn't mind as Maria Grazia Spina is a very appealing heroine who has made some nice appearances in Italian cinema over the years. Weirdly enough, there are hardly any barbarians in this film – instead the enemy are the Praetorians, a sub-army originally set up by Rome but which turned rogue over the years.
Roland Carey was never the most popular peplum actor but I don't mind his performance here. However, I do mind the poor action scenes. They're repetitive in the extreme and consist of mild-mannered stage fighting as two groups pair off and proceed to attack each other, very slowly, with swords. Every single battle consists of guys attacking then parrying, over and over again and it soon becomes tiring. You never once get the impression that any of these guys are seriously trying to kill their opponents, there's no energy involved. At least a massive guy like Gordon Scott would come along and tear down the scenery and put some strength and spirit into his role. There's none of that here.
The use of stock footage also gets a little annoying, plus all the cuts they put in to hide the low budget. Most of the film takes place in a single palace location, with a dungeon and a courtyard thrown in. Lots of scenes take place at night, probably to hide the lack of extras. Things do pick up towards the fun climax, but I'll never understand why the enemies die so easily – a weak slash with a sword and they drop down dead, despite wearing leather armour. The film wins point for including a classic arrow-through-the-neck death though, a virtual must for this particular genre.
