Fight to the Max

Rating: Null/10 (11 June 2000)

Don't expect a history lesson here, but who does that anyhow? It's an ancient action movie in amazing modern visual design!! The computer-generated colosseum & the old city of Rome, the gladiator fights, the set and costume design and, of course, the excellent actors make this movie worth seeing. Russell Crowe is brilliant as the general who...(you surely know the movie trailer), Joaquin Phoenix is convincing as Commodus even though sometimes slightly annoyingly overacting his part, but I especially liked Connie Nielsen as his sister who tries to save Rome from her brother's folly while at the same time being in fear of him.
Still the film has its flaws as e.g. the sometimes rather incoherent story line, or its at times overtly annoying score (which in general, in my opinion, was not suitable for this kind of movie--it sounds most often more like the soundtrack for a medieval English history drama). But these are rather minor cracks in an overall very entertaining and enjoyable film!