Mediocre

Rating: Null/10 (15 January 2001)

There is no doubt that `Gladiator' was a fine film. However, when deciding which movie should be the golden child of the Oscars for 2000, one should be able to use easily think of better adjectives than simply `fine'. Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix both gave very good performances, but, in my humble opinion, they were not quite Oscar worthy. If this movie had come out in 1999, then such a discussion would be completely unnecessary since there were so many fine movies that year (at least relative to 2000). But, because of the overall poor pool last year, a mediocre film such as Gladiator has risen to the top of many peoples' Oscar A-lists. Well, move it to the top of your B-list. Granted there were not many excellent films this year, but there were some. Films such as `Traffic', `Castaway', and `Unbreakable' all had better writing, better acting, and most importantly, more originality. `Gladiator' was a very basic, and at sometimes tedious, storyline, which we have seen countless times. Man gets wronged, he seeks revenge. There was nothing new here, except that the director learned he could shake a camera during fight scenes. The computer generated Rome was of extremely poor quality, and the muddy earth-toned scenery was depressing.

To reiterate, it's a fine story, a good action film. But until the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences creates a category `Best Mediocre Film', then there should be no discussion of "Gladiator" as an Oscar contender.