Amazing...but missing something

Rating: 9/10 (9 May 2000)

I approached Ridley Scott's Gladiator with an enthusiasm for spectacular visual effects and a testosterone-pumped craving for carnage along the lines of Saving Private Ryan meets Ben-hur. However, upon actually viewing the film, I found that there is much more at work here. Of course, Scott is no Joel Schumacher and Russell Crowe isn't a Schwarzeneggar type, so this came with only a minimal amount of surprise. To address my initial hopes, Gladiator does harbor a variety of extraordinary images. The Roman cityscape is worth the price of admission in itself. Although some shots exhibit that "too bright" look that a lot of cgi effects have, the majority of scenes are composed with convincing authenticity. But forget the settings. Let's talk about satisfying the "I want to see brutal murder and dismemberment" desires of most moviegoers. Don't get too excited. As far as the blood and guts go, it seems that all of the battle sequences were cut in extremely short takes thrown together with shaky-cam perspective(I'm guessing they were trying to avoid an NC-17 rating). The bottom line is: in most shots, you really can't tell what is happening except for traces of red derived from spraying blood and the occasional death scream. I understand some things are in bad taste, but when you are depicting the gladiator "sport", the exploitation of death is the center of entertainment. Points off for that one. Also in poor form is the editing of the film in general. Gladiator is either an edge-of-your-seat roller coaster ride or a soap-opera paced drama and never falls anywhere between these two extremes. There is simply no transition. So what you seem to be left with is two films: a Mad-Max-style, kill 'em all hand to hand combat action flick on one hand and an expensive period piece character-study on the other. It's not that the performances are bad. It's just that there is essentially very little plot, so the actors have no means of developing their characters other than in face-to-face emotional monologues. Which brings me to the overly-dramatic-at-points score. There is a scene in the beginning of the film where Commodus and his father discuss the future of Rome. It entails Commodus communicating great frustration to his father through an emotional out-pour. The scene is acted adequately, but the music is laughably out of place and you feel like laughing at Commodus rather than understanding his plight. Aside from that, and a rather weak ending, Gladiator is, by all means, a must see. It runs over older sword and sandal epics with a 4-horse chariot (ok, that was pretty lame...forgive me).