A Roman Army general becomes a gladiator, but is determined to end the new emperors tiranny

Rating: 9/10 (23 November 2000)

I really liked the film for it's spectacle (and for Russell Crowe of course!). I like spectacle films, especially when they're dealing with the Roman Empire. I must remark that "Gladiator" isn't worth much historically spoken. It's 99% fiction and 1% history. Marcus Aurelius was succeeded by his son Commodus and the latter was in fact a hideous man, but he wasn't murdered in the Colosseum by a gladiator who actually was an army general. There are other flaws in the film, but those are based more on historical misunderstandings than on faults by the screenwriters. If you want to read about this, an author named John Kelly wrote an article about this. It appeared in one of our Belgian newspapers, I don't know the original, English title of the article (sorry!). But on the other hand, I don't think it was the meaning of the filmmakers to make a historically correct film. I think it was their meaning to make a great spectacle with massive scenes and they succeeded in that!