Highly enjoyable hokum

Rating: 7/10 (7 February 2002)

"Gladiator" is hokum. Let's begin there. It's highly cheesy - but it's quality cheese. It's nice cheese. I like to eat this cheese.
The premise is absurdly simple - Maximus Meridus (Russell Crowe) loses his family and his command after refusing to pledge alliegance to the psychotic new Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Pheonix) because Commodus is a loony and killed his own father to gain power, fearing (rightly) his dad was about to dissolve the role of Emperor. So he ends up being a gladiator and uses his skills to rise up and get a chance to wreak vengeance. So no points for plot and there a few historical inaccuracies but hey, it's Hollywood! We expect it..
It's the acting and conviction placed into the characters that helps move this movie upwards. Crowe is great - and hey he won an Oscar for his role here. Real sense of the gritty determination he has and check out his "And I will have my vengeance - in this life or the next" speech- fantastic fun. Joaquin Pheonix camps it up a little as Commodus and is devilishly enjoyable as the slimy, lecherous, cowardly ruler. Fun fun fun. All the other plays similarly play well here.
Ridley Scott puts enough energy into this movie to draw you in. Sure you can argue the battles are done with flashy fast moving camera work in a bid to distract you - there's some truth to that. So what? It looks nice. "Gladiator" doesn't have pretensions on being a highly morale and deep tale - it's a fun blockbuster! It's slick and well done. Maybe you can detract points for Zimmer's overly present musical score or the overly heavy imagery of wheat-fields etc. but in the end it doesn't matter. "Gladiator" doesn't have enough to make it one of my favourite movies but it does have more than enough to lift it above the general dross. A well deserved 7.8/10