The summer starts with this triumphant Gladiator

Rating: 9/10 (3 May 2000)

This is not Braveheart, the war drama about Scotland's quest for freedom. This is a character study, a comic book, a video game. Ridley Scott and his screenwriters find intelligent ways to give us everything we would ever want to see in a gladiator film. It doesn't aim to teach or evoke pathos, but to entertain like the gladiators themselves. To the film's credit, it does its job admirably.
Russell Crowe is back from Jeffrey Wigand and returns to raging Bud White mode. He carries the film in a breath-taking stride, even though his Aussie-accent is difficult to cover up at first. Joaquin Phoenix is the best costumed villainous fop since Tim Roth of Rob Roy.
And the battle scenes are rousing, combining the violent red-throated carnage of Braveheart with the you-are-there shaky-cam of Saving Private Ryan to impression results. And the film actually FEELS like Rome, a feat that for all their glory (varying though) Spartacus and Ben-Hur haven't been able to muster up as they've aged.
Gladiator is a terrific way to spend two-and-a-half hours and one of the best non-stop action flicks since Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Terminator.