Riotously campy success in the "guilty pleasure" genre, but much too long due to pretense of being some kind of intellectual high tragedy.

Rating: 5/10 (27 August 2000)

Finally saw Gladiator. Now that's guilty pleasure. Definitely a guy movie, as men outnumbered women three to one in audience. Star Wars, popular as it was, made the mistake of actually being about something; I'm happy to say that Gladiator has no redeeming value whatever. Just blood, mud and crud. Some of the killing made me laugh out loud, like when Crowe stabbed a guy with two swords and then chopped off his head while he was still standing. When Oliver Reed went into that monologue, accompanied by full orchestra, about the thrill of the cheering crowd I almost thought he was going to sing There's No Business Like Show Business. You know something is a bit over the top when one of the most restrained performances comes from Richard Harris! Another big laugh was when Crowe and Djimon win the crowd over by becoming the first "tag team" gladiators in pre-television history. Film pictures all the gladiators as united against some unnamed enemy over on the other side of the arena, thus daintily skirting the more Spartacus-like reality that the gladiators fought and killed each other -- and therefore, presumably, were hard put to have indulged themselves in the kind of emotional ties we see here. When the leading lady (Connie Nielsen, in fact just about the only woman) arranges to meet Crowe privately, she explains for the audience's sake that patrician women purchased sexual favors this way all the time. Seems to me everybody onscreen would know that already! It's like in The Mikado where Yum Yum turns halfway toward the audience and says to Nanky Poo "But darling, you forget: in Japan..." except that in the latter case WS Gilbert meant it as a joke.
The one thing that dampened the pace was long dialogue scenes between the battles, as if the movie were hunting desperately for some intellectual point that would justify its existence, not unlike the '63 Cleopatra in that way. Unnecessary in either case, serving only to protract the running time. Gladiator should be at least a half hour shorter than it is. Audience ate it up, though.
A friend commented "Gladiator will live on TNT and USA forever!" but I think she underestimates basic cable: there will probably also be a series starring Lorenzo Lamas.