Rather good action adventure, not sure if it was really an Oscar caliber film.

Rating: 8/10 (14 February 2010)

This film was released in the summer of 2000 and was a bit more of a film than your typical summer blockbuster. However, I am a bit surprised it won the Oscar award that year mainly because as it is not in its entirety your typical summer blockbuster it has most of the elements of one. It has a lot of action and a lot of blood, granted there is some story to it that makes it a step above mindless summer popcorn film. The movie was also a hit with an R rating which is why I will never understand why they weaken so many films these days, bringing them down to PG-13 thinking this is going to bring them more money. This one proves that you can make a ton of cash with an R rating. This along with other R films like "300", the entire Matrix trilogy, "Hannibal" (hell this one wasn't even a good movie", and a host of others yet they still insist on making most movies PG-13. Well enough of that rant, on to this film. Its story is fairly good involving the leader of an army who is basically retiring after the death of the emperor. Well his son for some reason tries to have him killed and does succeed in killing the soldier's family. Well the soldier ends up being sold and becomes a gladiator who amazes the crowd with his awesome brutality. Well he ends up competing in the coliseum where the man who had his family murder watches. So in the end a nice bloody film and one of the few best picture winners I have ever seen at the theater. I think the only other Oscar winners I have seen at the theater are "Titanic" and "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King". This one is good, I do not know if it really merited an Oscar, but I am not going to say something else deserved it that year either as I remember it being a rather weak year for movies.