Gladiator 2000
Solid throughout, Gladiator is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. Russell Crowe does a good job of portraying Maximus, the top soldier in the army who wants nothing more than to retire and return home to his family back on the farm.
It’s unfortunate that the movie hero cycle has been done so many times. Though this is a really good movie there still isn’t a whole lot of new ground. It came out at about the same time as The Patriot and the similarities are staggering. Though I wasn’t as impressed as many with Titanic, I think this is the better movie. As a period piece it does a great job with the costumes and re-creating Rome. There are other locations that are equally spectacular if not as impressive technically. The director doesn’t shove all the special effects in your face like Titanic did but the effect is more balanced. Like the Titanic, the Colisseum is the setting, not a star of the show.
The plot moves along pretty well and the characters are all well played. Joaquin Phoenix is surprisingly good as the evil emperor. Hollywood has trained us to only accept as “genuine” Romans with British accents, but he really looks the part. He gets enough scenes that you get to at least realize the position he’s in even if you still don’t like him. His sister is also well-played and maybe the most complex character in the film.
The only part I didn’t like was the ending which was implausible and not entirely satisfying. But I won’t go into that here . . .
Anyway, good directing, good acting combined with a good story and characters.
I’ll give it an A
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital