Hmmmm... well, not the worst film I have seen.

Rating: 6/10 (11 June 2000)

I dunno. I was really excited about going to see Scott's new film, I am a big fan of his work. Also, I did part of my undergraduate degree in Ancient History and find Marcus Aureliuz and his reasons for appointing Commodus to be very interesting. However, I am not one of those picky historians who needs to have every little detail correct. I realize that film is a fictional medium and accept fully that it will NOT represent historical events accurately, but will alter them to fit the dramatic needs of the story (no one criticizes Shakespeare for doing the same thing, so why attack others). Hence, I will not dwell on historical inaccuracies... there were a few, but they did not impact my appreciation of the film.*

Regardless of any of these things, the movies just wasn't that good. The characters were not particularly engaging and the battle scenes were so staged that there was little, if any, serious tension. I am not really sure what this is, but Gladiator was simply not very exciting.

Aside from this, the plot was not really germaine to anything that happened in the film. The characters were sort of placed into the film without any real sense of context for their actions or motivations. The individual stories that were being told within the movie were not particularly interesting nor did they serve to advance the main plot significantly. None of this would have been a problem if there had been more action, or more emotion or more... well, something.
The acting was good, but the dialogue and story were so generic and dull that this really could not save the film overall. Richard Harris was good, but underused. Joaquin Phoenix was fine, but really wasn't given much to do. Most of the supporting characters were far too one dimensional to allow the actors to shine through.
Essentially, this film did all of the things wrong that Braveheart did right (another historically innacurrate, but far superior film) and suffered because of it. It is truly unfortunate, because I have a certain love for historical dramas when done well (I even liked Titanic), hopefully Mel Gibson will save the genre once again with The Patriot.
* Well, there was one that bothered me a bit, the film attempted to end on an up note, but if I remember my Roman history, the death of Commodus lead to a century of civil war and destruction. This leads me to question Scott's choice of time and historical characters. A similar film could have been set much earlier, dealing with Nero or Caligula and been more consistent with historical events... oh well.