If this movie is a joke, then it's a bad joke...

Rating: 1/10 (22 July 2000)

Is this movie meant to be a joke ? A parody of what it could have been ? A motion picture that presumes to be (visually) "a Roman Saving Private Ryan" but carefully avoids showing the horrors that were plain in Saving Private Ryan. Somewhere I get the idea that either producer or director must have thought : "Yes great, let him charge into his opponent and hack his head of with one single mighty sweep. But, as we want as many spectators as we can get, let's put a tree between the audience and the guy who gets his head chopped off." So there you are, half the movie embedded in a semblance of violence that pretends to be shocking but isn't in the least. Which is acceptable if you're broadminded enough, after all there's the other half of the movie. Unfortunately the actors (with the exception of the revered Derek Jacobi) must have felt similarly about the "action" scenes, because they try with all their might to "act" their way through the rest of the movie. There's nothing as irritating as an actor being very aware of the fact that he's acting and showing it ! See how good I am ? But even then : the story might be good. Which it isn't. The story of "Gladiator" is a flimsy excuse for a second rate B-movie plot . With excuses to anyone who ever wrote a B-movie plot. Did anyone actually get paid for writing this ? Historically staggeringly incorrect hardly begins to describe it ! Full of dead ends (let's not reveal the "plot") and dead dialogue. May I suggest something ? Don't spend money to see it. If you really have to, wait until some channel puts it on tv and tape it (you don't want to watch it at 4 in the morning anyway, because that will probably be the time they broadcast it...)