Gladiator

Gladiator; historical drama, USA / UK / Malta / Morocco, 2000; D: Ridley Scott, S: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi, David Schofield

Roman Empire, 180 AD. Maximus is one of the generals in the Roman army, fighting against German tribes in the north. When the emperor Marcus Aurelius wants to appoint him a temporary leadership, his angry and jealous son Commodus kills him and let's Maximus' child and wife be executed. Maxius ends up being a slave in North Africa and losing everything. When he reaches the Colosseum as a gladiator he fights Tigris the Gaul, gains popularity among the crowd, and eventually gets into a duel with Commodus in the arena. In a ferocious fight, they both die.

40 years after the end of the era of monumental films, the genre was revitalized in a surprisingly stiff way with "Gladiator", an old-fashioned movie filmed like a hasty MTV music spot that became the 4th most commercial film of the year. It also won several awards. But unlike other popular monumental films whose main attributes were awe and fascination, "Gladiator" tiresomely fills its overlong 150 minutes of screen time with anemia and dryness, making the viewer wonder when is it finally going to get good or end after every half an hour. "Gladiator" was praised by a lot of critics, but in reality it is a routine Ridley Scott film—aesthetic cinematic images, banal story, dialogue and characters. Scott also isn't that inspired—everything here is correct, but nothing is truly outstanding, inspired or imbibed with some sort of refined finesse. 

The story is told in a way too straight-forward fashion. In a way, that is not entirely wrong—the plot is clear and simple, the set design and costumes are great, reconstructing the ancient Roman world with a lot of meticulous care, the action scenes are pretty good, the viewer can somewhat identify with the main protagonist Maximus who lost everything and longs for revenge, and the whole film is solid. But that is it. Leaving historical inaccuracy aside (in the finale, emperor Commodus goes into the arena himself (!) to fight Maximus), "Gladiator" never managed to distinguish itself from the mass of other soap operas or films from the same genre. Ironically, "Conan the Barbarian", a film with a similar revenge story that was deemed as trash by some of the critics in '82, still seems easily more fresh and modern than this film. Scott tried to enrich the story and make it look better than it actually is, but didn't succeed because it was simply a thin revenge story written with awfully boring dialogues that were not stimulating—actually, 5 minutes of his "Blade Runner" are worth more than 50 minutes of "Gladiator". In a way, "Gladiator" is a matter of taste, because it plays out like a wrestling film. However, there is one great moment, when Lucilla visits Maximus in prison and admits she loved him: "I have felt alone all my life, except with you." It is the only inspired dialogue in the movie, but it is worth everything.

Grade:++