The ancient Roman epic genre is well-served by Ridley Scott's new film.

Rating: 8/10 (7 May 2000)

GLADIATOR
Over 30 years has elapsed since the heyday of the epic spectaculars of the ancient world. Ridley Scott, director of `Blade Runner,' `Alien,' and `Thelma & Louise,' has brought his fine sense of visuals to renew the genre in his latest film, `Gladiator.' The jumping off point in Roman history is very close to Anthony Mann's `Fall of the Roman Empire' (1964). Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris), Roman emperor, is trying to finish off the barbarian hordes who have been attacking at the northern edge of the empire at the Germanic border. Maximus (Russell Crowe), his top general, is ready to finish off the enemy and does in a brutal Saving Private Ryan-like battle. As a matter of fact, he does such a great job, Aurelius wants him to be his successor, passing over the emperor's own son, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). Of course, the overlooked son will have none of this and these circumstances set up the relationships and vengeance for the remainder of the saga. Connie Nielsen portrays Commodus' widowed sister and former lover of Maximus. The rest of the film continues from the northern empire to the north of Africa where Maximus is trained as a gladiator and ultimately back to Rome itself where the final conflicts play themselves out.
The film owes much to the epics of the 50's and 60's. The look and style of film is definitely current. However, the small gladiatorial arena in Africa is reminiscent of `Spartacus.' Later sequences in the great Roman Coliseum recall `Quo Vadis,' `Barabbas,' and even `Ben-Hur'. The performances are uniformly good, especially Oliver Reed as slave owner and gladiator trainer, Proximo. Reed died three weeks before filming was completed and computer graphics were utilized to scan his face on another actor to complete his scenes. Other computer-generated effects are unnoticeable for the most part, but some matte paintings are obvious as such, though quite effective.

Of course, most viewers have come for the action sequences seen briefly in the previews and talk show promotions. The action is fast with lots of quick cutting making some of the conflicts difficult to follow. However, they do have a visceral effect, as those early scenes in Private Ryan did. It is fortunate that the connecting dialogue material is smooth and not over-ripe as some of the similar exposition in the 50's-60's films. Phoenix is particularly fine in actually making the viewer sympathize with him. Christopher Plummer played the role way over the top in the earlier `Roman Empire' epic. Nielsen has some genuinely emotional moments with him as incest rears its ugly head, a topic not even hinted at in the earlier film. Sophia Loren and Stephen Boyd were quite wooden in the parts here played by Crowe and Nielsen. Loren always had trouble being natural in English-speaking roles in her early career. Her rare interior and exterior beauty often compensated for that.
Scott has created a realistic, though sometimes stylized, ancient world. Viewers hungry for the majesty and conflict of those classic films will not be disappointed. The magnificent widescreen cinematography, best viewed on a large screen, will surely help the 2 hours and 34 minutes seem faster moving than much shorter films today. Hopefully, this film will be a revival of a much-loved genre of years gone by.