Slightly disappointing and somewhat hard to endure for historical educated people

Rating: 6/10 (1 March 2007)

Gladiator promised to be the precursor of a new generation of historical movies. Therefore expectations were high. Special effects in the movie business reached a level where the realisation of every story themed possible. Saving Private Ryan gave a good impression of how the new historical movies could look like: gigantic, fast and dirty. Gladiator had all that and it lacked everything else. The movie was a pain to watch for every historian. It featured wrong written Latin and wrong Roman names, weapons and armour from an era of more than one millennium, even some very futuristic items like the praetorian uniforms and Maximus' helmet, and a confused presentation of the Roman behaviour. All this could have been avoided easily by simply consulting the engaged historian who refused to be mentioned in the credits due to all the mentioned mistakes. Historical people appeared but were almost impossible to recognize. The Germanic warriors looked like cavemen, but were in fact entirely Romanised by this time, the mistrust of Marcus Aurelius in his own son was incomprehensible as was his desire to reestablish the republic and Commodus is simplified to the stereotypical Roman tyrant he has never been. The story was more than common. It was a conglomeration of well known Hollywood stories featuring betrayal, violence and an upcoming underdog. And finally the movie avoided profundity. The characters were clichÃ©s, Commodus for example was the stereotyped tyrant, who is dastard, cruel and commits incest. Every aspect was divided in black and white extremes - the muddy and dark Germania versus the clean and shiny Rome, the true and honourable legionnaire forces versus the corrupt and hypocritical Roman politicians, the honest and brave Maximus versus the craven and week Commodus. And all the stereotypes of the Roman Empire were reproduced. The film featured a powerless senate, a nasty emperor, a brave gladiator, conquering Roman legionnaires, fierce barbarians, a woman in the background and the end of a regency. By trying to combine all these features in one movie the movie itself looses its plausibility.
If you can ignore all that you will find Gladiator a simple but entertaining movie to lighten a boring afternoon.