What a disappointment.

Rating: Null/10 (7 May 2000)

I was really hyped up to see this movie and man was it a disappointment. Basically the only thing this movie has going for it is the cool fight scenes and action sequences involving gladiators. I'll admit that the fight scenes are pretty exciting and visually well made. But they are too few and far between. The movie is two and a half hours long and there are so many boring parts involving Joaquin Pheonix and really boring and uninspired dialogue between him and his sister. I literally fell asleep. I don't care about political power plays between Roman senators and Emperors, it's boring. And the dialogue gets pretty cheesy at times, I can understand why Russell Crowe had such a problem with some of his lines... they are pretty poorly written. And the English accent that everyone has confused me. I thought I was watching Braveheart. One guy even had a Scottish accent. Gladiator is basically a Braveheart clone set in ancient Rome and is very unhistorical and unrealistic. Especially the thumbs up, thumbs down, which Romans didn't actually use. There was no thumbs up, there was only a fist enclosing the thumb to spare the fighter's life (indicating a sheathed sword) or a thumbs down, meaning kill the fighter. The action sequences were awesome but might not be worth putting up with the rest of the boring plot that this long movie requires the viewer to sit through. Gladiator is not a very inspiring epic, which it tries too hard to be.