"Gladiator" has it all...almost.

Rating: 8/10 (22 November 2000)

From cast to cinematography to wardrobe to sets to effects to just about everything else, "Gladiator" has it all. But, try as it may, the film fails to connect on the human level. What could have been a powerful epic which clearly defined the undercurrents of good and evil responsible the climate of political unrest and upheaval in Rome instead takes a simplistic "good guy" versus "bad guy" approach, gets too involved in it's own grandeur, and substitutes action for story telling with the likely result of a disconnected audience which will not feel the empathy and emotion such a film should command. Nonetheless, it's worth a watch even at 2.5+ hours.