Well made and entertaining

Rating: 7/10 (27 August 2006)

There is a place for a well made, entertaining film like this; as far as I am concerned just not, generally, on the Oscar podium, but still.
Gladiator has some impressively filmed scenes; the extended battle scene at the beginning is first rate, as is the recreation of the battle of Carthage in the Colessium (Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we win? - great line). All of the fighting scenes were imaginatively staged.
The acting was decent. Russell Crowe - not one of my favorite actors - proves he can be effective when he's not given too much to say, and Juaquin Pheonix is superbly creepy throughout.
But I found myself annoyed at stretches of the film, particularly at the end, where Crowe envisions meeting his wife and child on a tree line alley through a field of wheat, or something. It's what I expect from a Mitch Albom book, not a serious movie. Not that it detracts too much from the film, really. The story of Crowe's family is the peg to hang the action on; it adds neither intellectual or emotional depth to what is in reality a well-made, well-shot, entertaining popcorn muncher.