A massive epic, Ridley Scott's work of art - Simply a masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (15 August 2007)

"Gladiator" is, to me, one of the best films ever made, probably even in my personal Top 10 Movies of All Time -list. It's a massive epic motion picture that pleases your eyes and ears with effective visuality, drama, romance and more. The story tells about a Roman general Maximus who gets betrayed by an evil prince. By the acts of the prince, Maximus's family gets murdered and he wanders into sorrow where tears won't be spared. He then finds himself captured to become a gladiator among other slaves, but he still seeks for revenge. Maximus tries to keep himself alive in battles which he is forced into, only that he might someday take his revenge against the evil prince. The story has so much more in it, but I'll just leave the rest of it for the viewers, as I certainly do not want to give away any spoilers.
Like I already said, the story is simply fantastic. It's so deep and touching, being very original at the same time. Despite of the movie being a massive epic one it still isn't clichÃ© at all, it just maintains the level of drama in a level that doesn't go over the top. It has a nice flow too and there is no boring scene in any part of the movie, every scene matters and every scene is significant in its own way, that's just how incredible the storytelling is. The building of the main character, the whole theme from victorious to sad, from sad to anger and from anger to a satisfying ending, everything goes like it's supposed to. The creation of the world has been achieved terrificly well; The sets, the dressing, all the details, basically everything. Although there was a lot of CGI used in the creation of the world, the CGI department deserves a big plus on making everything so believable and realistic. Everything looks smooth and soothing, just the way you want it to look like. You can't complain, really.
What comes to role performances, well, in my opinion Russell Crowe does an absolutely phenomenal role performance as Maximus. The anger, the sorrow, all the expressions and body language, just great. I don't care if Crowe is an asshole in real life, because whatever they say in the press he still is an amazing actor. He has actually become one of my favourite actors because of his past role performances, he is just everything a director wants from an actor, performing every role flawlessly. He does have that sort of a rough appearance, but he can play a nice guy too. What comes to other role performances there is one more to mention; Joaquin Phoenix. To be honest, I've never liked Phoenix that much, don't know why, but I have to admit that he is too an amazing actor. As the evil prince Commodus he is that brilliant fierce himself again, a perfect actor for an evil role.
This is by far Ridley Scott's best film yet to date and when Hans Zimmer's music is put on top of the cake you just can't go wrong with that. The directing is superb and the music is magnificent. Like mentioned above the directing consists of mixtures of genres; Drama, romance, adventure and action. Every department is handled in superior way, in a way that leaves your notebook blank on the side of the faults the movie would suffer from. The music has this main theme in it, which is beautifully composed, including that beauty and also thrill and intensity. "Gladiator" is all in all a tremendous motion picture which everyone should see, a born legend some could say. Fantastic story, phenomenal role performance by the lead actor, superb directing and beautiful music; All this compile a film that I can't imagine to be a disappointment to anyone, a definite 9 out of 10.