Rip roaring epic/strong drama/great acting, score and direction/bad script

Rating: 9/10 (10 January 2001)

Gladiator-the film about Maximus (Russell Crowe) who, after the newly "elected" emperor (Joaquin Phoenix) kills his family, rises up in an attempt to defeat him. The film contains tons of splattery action, and he-man butchering, but Scott incorporates his brilliance into it, with constant symbolism, and true care for Maximus. With this, we get some of the best thrills I can remember in the past 5 years out of Gladiator's action scenes. Scott also incorporates some great drama, with a compelling and sad scene at the end, a feel for the evil emperor, and the aura of the scenery and its surroundings. The acting, all I can say is...WOW! Russell Crowe, anyone who doesn't appreciate his acting talent should be taken out back and shot. He is amazing! Angry, ferocious, honorable, determined, and seriously p***ed off. Joaquin Phoenix is as good, and almost better. Evil, disgusting, repulsive, but you have sympathy for him, and sometimes he seems relatively normal. Oliver Reed is great, but sadly he died during the film's production. Connie Nielsen is also very good, and Richard Harris, in his small role, is worth praise. Ridley Scott, who is unfortunately getting a little old, directs this film very well, like I've mentioned before, and inserts provoking themes inside the action and angriness. Praise for him. The score! Hans Zimmer did the rip roaring action scenes mostly, and Lisa Gerrard did the chants. This combines to be one of the greatest scores I've ever heard. Sad and heroic. Now that I've honored the other things, let me get mad at the scriptwriters. John Logan I've come to dislike with his idea of good films: dumb football movies (Any Given Sunday), awful horror movies (Bats), and a movie thats extremely good but script isn't (Gladiator). I think Franzoni and Nicholson had a good idea going, and Logan, who (I'm making an assumption) butchered the script with fake lines and totally off historical facts. Moving on to possible Oscar nods: Winner- Best Actor-Crowe/Best Supporting Actor-Phoenix/Best Score-Zimmer,Gerrard Now that I'm done with that, I'll say this: GO SEE IT! YOU'LL LOVE IT! ***1/2 stars out of ****