Running Time: 155 minutes

Scene One: Opens with huge set piece. This is not present day; this is signified by monochrome photography and smoke machines. Many close-ups and fast cutting without any sense of geography (ie. directed by one of the Scott Brothers). Cue skip-frame photography and telegraph-all-emotions kitschy score so that it now resembles a music video.

The rest of the film consists of: obligatory dialogue scene, then gladiator action scene, then obligatory dialogue scene, then gladiator action scene, etc, etc...until the two head honchos finally do battle with each other. The dialogue scenes are boring, obvious, inconsequential, completely lacking in crackling dialogue or one-liners, humourless, useless, ham-fisted and totally devoid of genuine emotion (as opposed to sentimentality, of which there is plenty). Because the plot is absolutely obvious and foreshadowed from scene one, you can go to sleep during any of these scenes and have no trouble playing join-the-dots, fill-in-the blanks scriptwriting-by-committee.

Snore...um, hmmm...what's happening? oh, another fight scene! Cool! You too can cheer and applaud as people get their heads chopped off and are gored in multiple ways! If you see it in a cinema which features stadium seating, you too can recreate what it must have been like sitting in that colloseum. Isn't it amazing how far we've evolved? People used to go to the colloseum to cheer on brutality for entertainment value. Whereas now, people go to cheer on a movie about people cheering on brutality for entertainment value. My, how things have changed since those medieval times. Are we having fun yet? And a great big round of applause goes to Russell Crowe for beheading that man in the arena. Bravo!

Sometimes, the gladiator will have visions about his past, only they closely resemble River Phoenix's visions from Gus Van Sant's 'My Own Private Idaho'. Oh, well, it's the thought that counts, even if they're not your own.

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I have a complete 180 degree take on Michael's review. This is a great film which signals the return to form of a great director. Even Russel Crowe is good and Hans Zimmer's score makes me want to buy the soundtrack right away (or at least download an MP3 )

The fight/battle scenes a very well staged and edited and though it is very violent, we are spared prolonged shots after the fact.

The CGI in the film is very good and looks real. It is also used in appropriate places, unlike that slop Star Wars.

And judging by our first day, I'd be getting an extra box office person or two 'cos you're gonna need them. A Thursday night and we topped the 760 patron mark.

All who've seen it seem to like it.

It's a story about a Gladiator, Michael. Not Bambi.

I recommend The Gladiator.

Anyway, in reference to Gladiator, all I could think of during this flick was a line which I will now quote:
"Horrible, deploric violence is ok...so long as there isn't any naughty words!" -Sheila Broflowski from SouthPark

Yoda: "Embrace the crowd you shall"

Otherwise it was great! Great CGI, flawlessly mixed with the live action. Great cast, beautiful score (same guy that did thin red line by the way!!) The dialogue wasn't slow, its juat that the Gladiator stuff was VERY outweighed and intense. The dialogue was good though, very well photographed, good to look at. I loved the flashbacks/ heaven shots , very sureal, reminded me of The Messanger in parts.

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The only time I really felt involved in the movie at all was during the two Colosseum scenes where Maximus takes the swords out of his opponent’s chest and cleaves the man’s head off and when one of the archers gets sliced in half by the protruding blade affixed to one of the chariot wheels. In fact I was so involved I screamed aloud in delight (I was alone of course). And I guess that goes to show I’m no better than the people of Rome in those days of bread and circus. And maybe realizing that the violence was entertaining to people like me was the point Ridley was trying to make. I mean the only real point to the movie (besides Maximus trying to get his revenge of course) was to show the precarious struggle by the Emperor and the Senate to gain favor of the people that must be kept entertained (lest they tear themselves apart) by the Gladiators like Maximus who they all love and praise for his violence. And we cheer (or are supposed to cheer) along with them. The only difference though is we know the people killed in the movie are still alive in real life.

I have a pretty good idea why they didn’t depict the tradition of feeding Christians to the lions while playing the hydraulos (an instrument so impressive, it could be heard a mile away). But where were the Roman bath house locales that could have been used during dialogue scenes between or among the politicians? And I didn’t see any handshakes in the traditional Roman manner (grasping each others forearm right above the wrist). I kept expecting Oliver Reed’s character Proximo to bite the dust any moment since he died early in the film’s production, so if they ever decided to go with CGI-ing his face like they proposed to do after he died, they did a hell of a job, and he even sounds like Oliver all through the film. Of course, I’m sure they just cut out some scenes and reworked the storyline instead, but at any rate it’s a shame he died because of all the performances in the movie, his was the best. Of course Russell Crowe did a good job too (he’s just awesome in anything he does), but I was drawn away from the seriousness of the movie for a brief moment when I first discovered his name to be Maximus and thought of the name Naughtus Maximus in Monty’s Python’s Life of Brian. That started a chain reaction in my mind that led to the Biggus Dickus scene, and I had to use all my concentration to block it out and focus on the movie at hand. Several laughs escaped though.

The music was excellent, although I think that a few cues were a little inappropriate to the content of the film. Particularly the end title music with Lisa Gerrard’s vocals accompanying the last of the movie. And that’s strange because it’s my favorite track in the score. It just feels a little out of whack in the movie. More British than Roman (damn that Ridley). There was a cue to the Gladiators first filing out of the tunnel onto the Colosseum stage that had elements of Gustav Hoist’s classical piece Mars- The Bringer of War, and that’s very apropos to that scene. But that final confrontation between Crowe and Phoenix was pretty stupid. Kind of reminded me a bit of the duel in Rob Roy. I think Tyler’s right about a battle between a Gladiator and a Caesar just not happening. And I didn’t even cheer or feel satisfied when Phoenix died and Crowe got his revenge which is the whole damn driving force behind the story. This movie would have been better if Ridley Scott had no affiliation with it whatsoever. Can’t wait to see what that man screws up next. The movie, overall, wasn't that bad, but it could have been a hell of a lot better. Mel Gibson should have directed Gladiator. After all, it’s basically a Roman Braveheart. Surely, he could have made the movie’s two and a half hours more interesting. And the battle scenes would have been more lucid.

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The man with the magic hands.

BTW, The Critereon DVD of Life of Brian is Awesome, I had to chuckle a little bit too, "Do you have a pwobwem....with my fwend...Biggus....Dickus???

Just had to throw in that U-571 remark in, didn't you?

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The man with the magic hands.

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And I did some research, the Caesar Commudus did actually die in a gladiator fight to the general of the northern armies but Gladiator was way out of context still. Entertaining however.