Bad Movie

Rating: Null/10 (23 May 2000)

I really wanted to be able to say this movie was good but sadly I cannot. I even the saw movie a second time hoping I had perhaps missed something first time round but whichever why you look at it Gladiator is just plain bad. As an Epic it fails dismally, the lack of a storyline, poor acting and the incredible length and pointlessness of the dialogue scenes make sure of that the only saving grace here is that rome looks fairly good although due to bad camerwork you dont ever get a proper look at it. As an action movie again this movie falls short both because of its attempt to be an epic and also because of the very poorly shot action scenes. Ridley Scott seemed to think it would be a good idea if he actually didnt shoot any action and instead threw together a bunch of second long shots of blood and swords flashing in an attempt to recreate "the chaos of battle" all this seemed to recreate for me was the mild nausea I experienced while watching the Blair Witch Project. If all this wasnt enough after 2 and 1/2 hours of attempting to build a climax it seems the writers decided they had run out of time (as if it wasnt long enough already) and shot one of the stupidest and most pointless end scenes ever. The story seems to be building to another big battle scene with the invasion of rome and then all of a sudden Maximus is in the arena with the roman emperor?!? Oh well I could go on forever pointing out the flwas of this so called epic but instead ill just warn you not to waste your 5 bucks.