Sword and sandal epic revived, as boring as ever

Rating: 2/10 (1 June 2000)

So Hollywood revived the long forgotten sword and sandal epic, absent from the screen in the last decade(s). In the case of Gladiator, it would have better still not be revived.
Gladiator comes along as a multi-million, box-office super-seller with actually nothing behind it. We get the mass battle scenes, some sword-dancing fights between gladiators and a lot of togas. The plot: not outstanding, the characters: cliché-like. No character gets really developed, everything is aimed at a sensual overflow (sometimes intersparsed with un-motivated sun-set shots). In addition to that, the shooting is quite poor: murky, unfocused and plain. The body count is high, but triggers no emotions (kind like a splatter movie in sandals..)
To put it simple: I had to fight to stay awake, save your (over-time) money for some better films.