"Commodus has issues."

Rating: 6/10 (15 February 2004)

My teenage son wanted to see this film so we bought the DVD version which offers extra features including commentary by director Ridley Scott. I hadn't been interested in catching this Roman a clef flick in the theaters and two and a half hours of watching it last night underscored my original reluctance.
It isn't a bad movie but virtuous hero against mad Roman emperor has been done before in literature (from Shakespeare to Graves) and often on film. Russell Crowe's effort as Maximus (Max the General) is good but hardly empire-shaking. Richard Harris as the aging emperor is a nice almost swan song for a fine actor who, for a change, doesn't shout.
My son thought that Commodus, played by Joaquin Phoenix, lacked a number of important qualities. When he comes on big time to his sister, Lucilla, Connie Nielsen, he remarked, "Commodus has issues." Commodus is everything a viewer expects from a big time villain: scheming, madness and - of course - a yellow streak down his back as wide as the screen.
The big arena fights are exciting for a while but how many heads can be loped off before a viewer has seen it all too often. The events try to recreate faithfully the exciting games once put on by the Roman Gladiatorial League with a cast of thousands (or some darn good computer work).
The commentary accompanying the deleted scenes is amusing. Director Scott explains why he left out a scene of lions turned loose on kneeling Christians by explaining that the animals were too passive as they went to lunch.
"Gladiator" is a huge money-grosser proving that this formulaic and potted snapshot of a crucial era in western history can't be reproduced too often.
6/10.