I hated, hated, HATED this movie

Rating: Null/10 (17 July 2000)

I love ancient epics. Who doesn't? I grew up watching Kevin Sorbo's "Hercules" TV series and was captivated by it, and I also enjoyed BEN-HUR and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. These films worked because they treated the civilizations of Greece and Rome with the utmost respect.
So when I first heard about Russell Crowe's new movie GLADIATOR I was on fire to see it. I couldn't wait to sit in the theater and watch Crowe battle tigers and armored monsters with swords.
But the movie left me cold, and in retrospect I should have expected as much. Director Ridley Scott (of BLADE RUNNER and the ALIEN films) projects his usual bleak palette on the screen here. For a movie about a glorious regime that supposedly brought light to what was then the known world, GLADIATOR seems so dark and gloomy. Plus, the story is anything but a whimsical joy ride; it's a bitter revenge-fest. After finding that his wife and son have been murdered, the Roman general Maximus (Crowe) is sold into slavery and becomes an angry, violent gladiator. The whole point of the plot is that he must find the man who wronged him - Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), the new emperor of Rome - and take his revenge.
I'm sorry, but I never knew anger and vengeance were such crucial elements in the Roman epic. As Maximus, Crowe broods and seethes throughout the entire production and manages to suck most of the fun out of the audience. Even the rousing gladiator battles (which took up less screen time than I'd hoped) did little to pique my interest. I tried to get myself to sympathize with Maximus, but I just couldn't. He didn't have a screen presence, unless you count hacking things to bits to be a presence.
I also loathed the film's villain, played by a pale, dark-eyed Joaquin Phoenix. Movie villains are supposed to enjoy their time on screen, but Commodus just whines and moans his way to an anticlimactic death no decent villain deserves. If you have a lackluster hero in a movie, you should at least try to make the villain interesting. Not so here. Commodus seems more like an annoying teenager than a ruler, and his only fascinating quirk is the supposed feelings of lust he has for his sister. Their "sex scene" together isn't really much of anything, doesn't go anywhere, and left me feeling nauseated and a bit creeped out.
With such insufferably insipid characters I was forced to concentrate on the film's only two positive qualities: the stunning vistas (they are grand) and the fight choreography. Unfortunately, there isn't enough action in this so-called action movie to really get excited about. The few fight scenes are shot with manic camera angles that would be more at home in a music video. And the ultimate battle scene at the end, which by definition should be the best of the bunch, quickly fizzles out like a wet firecracker.
Pointless, nasty, nihilistic, and overall the joke of its genre, GLADIATOR is grossly overrated. I desperately wanted to like this film, but it fell way below my expectations of what a historical drama should be.