Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)

A follow-up to The Robe (1953) in which the once-slave Demetrius (Victor Mature) gets sentenced to gladiatorial life in the Roman arena, putting him in the sights of emperor Caligula (Jay Robinson), who wants the robe, believing it'll grant him the magical powers that the deified Jesus reportedly had.
Similarly styled but not as beholden to Christian virtues as its predecessor was, the script flirts with sexual obsession, loss of faith and the depths of human despair. Peter (Michael Rennie) returns for a few short scenes, one of which is pivotal. On the flip side, the dramatic reversals happen abruptly and it bothered me that 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' extended only to human life. The ending is less striking than its predecessor, but that's perhaps not a bad thing.

3½ ugly truths out of 5