The best epic ever

Rating: 10/10 (3 March 2007)

Having grown up watching historical epics like "Ben-Hur", "Spartacus" and "El Cid" it was wonderful to see this type of film making a comeback. The first film I watched on this scale was Cecil B Demille's "The Ten Commandments" starring Charlton Heston which even now still amazes me how they achieved those effects seeing as the film is now 50 years old.
However, where the older films costumes seemed to be a little too clean, there was an element of realism in the look of this film. I cannot flaw any part of it. It has very strong performances from Russell Crowe (a well deserved Oscar winner), Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Djimon Hounsou as well as veteran actors Oliver Reed and Richard Harris. It was beautifully made and designed, accompanied by an excellent dramatic score which captured the elements perfectly. I thought it was a wonderful story which everyone can relate to about a man (Maximus, played by Russell Crowe) who just wants to go home to his family and his journey to get there "a general who became a slave, a slave who became a gladiator, a gladiator who defied an emperor". Despite the sadness of our hero dying at the end it was also happy as he had freed Rome from the dictatorship of rival Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) and returned to his family in the after life. The look of the film was so real it made me believe that they had actually built models of Rome and had all those people in the Colosseum and all those soldiers were on the battlefield of Germania. I loved the fact they did not feel they needed to glamorise it just to put bottoms on seats unlike other epic films like "Titanic" and "Pearl Harbour" which had to put a love triangle in the movie which to me ruined the background events.
In short, one of my favourite films and the best epic ever!