Depending on the version you see, this film starts with a gorgeously scored trip around some of the museums of Italy and of the Vatican allowing us to put the sheer magnificence of the talent of Michelangelo Buonarroti into context - and the volume and quality of that body of work, condensed into ten minutes or so, makes this worth watching just as a lesson in the history of art! The story is set during the Papacy of Julius II (Rex Harrison) the warlike, but artistically enlighted Pontiff who commissions and unwilling Charlton Heston to paint the ceiling of the rather run-down Sistine Chapel. ...