A phenomenal disappointment

Rating: 4/10 (30 September 2006)

At the time of its release, "Gladiator" promised far more than it delivered; part of the audience still had some hope "G.I. Jane" and "White squall" were the exception to Scott's career (other "exceptions" such as "Thelma & Louise" and "Black rain" were too far behind to be remembered) and Crowe had recently hit the big screen with "L.A. Confidential" and "The insider", making us believe he was indeed a versatile actor.
But when the moment of truth came, it all came down to a formulaic, even boring revisiting of "peplum" with a penchant for vengeance and codes of honor, some sort of Spaghetti Western on sandals. Worst of all, it is extremely inaccurate in its depiction of Ancient Rome, and there is something in its inaccuracy that makes me think it was intentional; for instance, the only main character with a Mediterranean phenotype is Joaquin Phoenix, albeit the rest of the main cast (Crowe, Harris, Nielsen, Jacobi, Reed, ...), although apparently Roman patricians and "equites", would be far more adequate playing Celts or Germans. And moreover, the true Germans were shown for a couple of minutes as furtive, dirty, easily disposable barbarian thugs who hid behind the trees making guttural noises and looked anything but Nordic. Furthermore, a grandiloquence is attributed to Roman architecture, urbanism and daily life which is highly unlikely to be even similar to the real Rome of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Even some of the weapons shown at the beginning of the film are extremely unlikely to have existed. In other words: this is not a reconstruction of Rome, but a projection, a deformed mirror from which a certain country of our days looks at itself. This happens to a certain point in "Alexander", too, and makes me think the current vogue of historical cinema is more directed at redefining the position of the United States as a summit of "enlightened power" in the midst of an uncivilized world than at maintaining accuracy and resemblance to the true facts.
The truth is Ridley Scott has only given us two good movies in all his career: "Alien" and "Blade runner". The rest of his work could have been directed by Spielberg, Cameron or even his own brother. Instead of wondering why his filmography is so mediocre nowadays, we should wonder how could he direct those two masterpieces. Maybe the essence of artistic excellence is heavily dependent on having the right collaborators rather than on personal genius, especially since the latter is not so frequent, after all. This would explain, for example, why Schoedsack and Cooper delivered one piece of Art in 1933 and never came even close to doing it again.