All the elements of a great tragedy with a side dish of critique of democracy

Rating: 9/10 (26 November 2015)

It's a story of love, greed, loyalty, revenge, sex, betrayal and camaraderie all packed into a nearly 3hr movie. What more could you want? Acting is top notch, scenery and visuals are fantastic, pacing is spot on. The many elements of the story are hardly original but they come neatly together to make this movie into a masterpiece.
Yet I think what captures the audience in this movie is deeper than that. One sits through the movie feeling, knowing that there really is no resolution for our protagonist at the end. Sure he'll get his revenge and overcome the odds, kill the bad guy and die peacefully believing he'll be reunited with his lost loved ones yet something is missing. Apart from the small diatribe about giving power to Roman citizens and restoring democracy, so much of it feels like it's been done in vain. If one wasn't overly invested in the death of the evil emperor, I can't see where that resolution would come. Strangely enough, this is a better movie for it. I compare it to Troy in this aspect.
The wholesome/moral/upright part of the story about a good man avenging the gruesome murder of his family while central to the course of events, doesn't lend itself to an epic finale where all wrongs will be righted and where justice would prevail. No wrong in this instance can truly be righted and what we are asked to accept as justice is ambiguous and less than fulfilling to say the least which I think is all for the better. This is not the epic story of the life of Ramesses II, this is Shelley's Ozymandias ridiculing our notions of greatness as The Gladiator lacks one thing he wants, a simple life with his family, to die of old age in his bed during his sleep yet every step of his life he's pushed by external forces to rise to a challenge he would rather avoid.
He's not really a good guy in the classical sense either. He's a Roman General which means he's been told to go and kill hundreds if not thousands of people to invade their land, pillage their resources and ironically enslave them as cheap labor or for recreational purposes. This rings true for many of the other characters as well. The revered emperor who neglected and abused his son having the nerve to chastise him for his "immorality" and incompetence, whose actions in raising the poor kid turned Commodus into a man whose ambition and thirst for greatness and power can't be satisfied until all is obedient and subservient to his power, his vision, his ambition. The lovely princess Lucille whose own desire for power and survival skills extend to conspiring to kill her brother. The senate, a corrupt bunch of politicians hiding behind the veil of democracy and claim of representing the people lavishly living off the finances of Rome. Last but not least, the people of Rome who have no qualms about being entertained by slaves being forced to murder each other for their entertainment, trusted by the "wise" emperor to make decisions for the well being of themselves and other Romans. This is where the critique of democracy kicks in, contrasted with Commodus' ambition for greatness, his drive for actualizing his vision for Rome these masses of Romans are only interested in their illusions of democracy, in their misguided virtues, in their violent sports and in their desire to feel victorious against the "barbarians", the end of the movie becomes somewhat anticlimactic with the thought.
One could get political and start drawing parallels between this and the Rome of our era, United States, but I believe this review has gone long enough already.