Spoiler but read it anyway. You'll be glad you did.

Rating: 3/10 (23 June 2005)

Warning Spoiler,,,,
It's hard to believe that this bomb gets such high ratings.
1) Wooden acting and dialogue. 2) The MTV 'fast cut" photography does nothing to enhance the movie. It's merely a FAD promulgated by no talent camera people who substitute faddish standards when they can't think clearly or creatively. 3) Scott treats Maximus and Marcus Aurelius like they are noble characters, with corny swelling music. Instead of what they were. Vicious, ruthless creeps on par with the worst of the Nazis.
4) Now to the worst part and the spoiler. Even if you've disagreed with the former you have to agree with this. This movie wants us to believe that Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) would put Maximus (Russell Crowe) into slavery because he threatens Commodus's chances of being the Emperor. He lets him live so he has a chance to come back and threaten later. Duh! Yeah that makes sense. He kills Maximus's wife & kid though. C'mon! Any dufus dictator would have just executed him plain and simple.Then we are supposed to believe that Maximus rises to the top of the gladiatorial thingee far enough that he becomes a hero gladiator. Again. Duh! Commodus would allow this? Double Duh! Now the crowning blow to credulity. We are supposed to believe that the wimpy Emperor would be STUPID enough to climb down into the arena and fight the buff, tough, well trained killer Maximus.
How stupid can movie goers and reviewers get? Pretty damn stupid I guess judging from the reviews here. Not all of us are fooled though.
The real tragedy is that within the story of Rome are countless compelling stories. Truth is way more interesting than this kind of contrived fiction. A real movie about real life Romans would have been far more interesting. Romans were like us. Their rulers were lazy, corrupt, ignorant, egotistical and horribly brutish. They had slavery like us, conquered like us, maintained a republic for 200 years, like us, until they capitulated to a dictator and a dictatorship in the name of security, which I hope we avoid. The Romans were masters of self delusion and deliberate ignorance of the society they created.
Spartacus, of course, comes to mind. The way that Kubrick explored the inner decay and fear of Laurence Olivier's Marcus twisted Licinius Crassus was brilliant to say the least. On the surface Crassus is genteel, educated, brilliant, but on the inside... Crassus kills HIS gladiator the way a real Roman Emperor would, after he is wounded, near death and no threat. He kills him in fear, cowardly, with a knife to the throat. He desperately wants Livia's love but doesn't know why or even what love is. He will never know love. He is obsessed with her indifference because it threatens his self deluded image of his own superiority. Rising to become the most powerful person in Rome he's really a pathetic shell of a human being terrified to confront his humanity. So pathetic he is worthy of pity from his slave.
There is nothing in this film that even comes close. Its all flash over substance and not even great flash.
The tension and anticipatory horror in final battle scene in Spartacus is palpable. We feel it the same as the rebels feel it. We are small and vulnerable in the coming gigantic battle. We feel their fear but we also know they are ready to die free because the alternative is worse. We are with them in spirit because we ARE them. We fear the Romans but we also hate their decadence and lack of decency and what they will do to our families. We may die but we are going to take down as many of them as we can.
In Gladiator we are treated like dumb observers who can't think for ourselves. We are marks who are stupid enough to pay the admission price. We ARE the observers in the coliseum, lazy, corrupt, ignorant, decadent, stupidly accepting a absurd plot.