So much wrong, so much right

Rating: 5/10 (16 May 2005)

The photo is excellent. The acting is great. The score is superb.
In the end, though, it seems that this movie is more inspired by Fall of the Roman Empire (the Alec Guiness film) than real history. It even seems to take pride in being historically incorrect, making the horrible King Arthur (the Clive Owen film) look like a fully correct historic textbook.
Some issues:
#1: The emperor Commodus was quite a lunatic character in real life too, but he would never try to face the best gladiator in single combat, even if he got to wound him first. #2: No legions were ever allowed to enter Italy (unless there was civil war) during the era in question. To have a field legion from Germania wintered in Ostia is incredibly stupid and incorrect. If the field legion is in Ostia (which is very close to Rome, being Rome's port), who ever is guarding the germanian border? #3: Even if Maximus could have returned to his legion in Ostia, what difference would it have made? There were 10.000 praetorian guard and 20.000 "police"-like troops in Rome at any time. I admit that those soldiers were much worse than hardened legionnaires, but how would the legionnaires get through the very impressive walls of Rome? All Commodus would have had to do was to lock the gate. #4: How could Maximus be captured as a slave? That was not the way slave traders got their goods. To make a roman citizen a slave is unheard of. To make a legionnaire a slave is even worse. A deserter? If he was a deserter, he would have been slain, not made a slave. #5: No, the republic would not be reinstated. Not even the senate wanted that at most times, especially in 180 AD when there had been 84 years of very good emperors that the senate loved. Even when there were bad emperors (such as Commodus, Caligula, Caracalla and Nero) who were murdered with the senate's approval, the senates first goal was to get a senate-friendly emperor on the throne, not reinstate the republic. Interestingly, that was exactly what happened when some senators actually had Commodus murdered in AD 193 (yes, thirteen years after the death of Marcus Aurelius). The senate remembered the Roman Revolution, 100 years of crisis in the late republic, saved only by the emergence of the emperor. Only nutcases wanted the republic system back, because it had proved unfit to govern an empire of that size. #6: You should definitely not mention the reinstatement of the republic in front of the next emperor in line. That would have been high treason and, as I said above, a sign of your own stupidity and non-understanding of politics. #7: There were 600 senators. There were no secret police worth the name yet in 180 AD. You could not "have every senator followed" #8: People would have been offended if someone threw bread on them in the Colosseum. Bread was free in Rome, available at your local bakery.
I realize that a movie is allowed to change history if needed for its plot, but here I do not feel that those changes are needed.
I could go on with unhistorical stuff. How could Tigres expect to face the leading gladiator and win if he had been retired for five years? He obviously did not have much time to train. Compare a MMA fighter of today returning after five years retirement facing a champion. That would never work. Tigres never stood a chance.
The parallels with Fall of the Roman Empire (which is a better movie) are interesting. If you liked Richard Harris as Marcus Aurelius (and he was good!), wait till you see Obi-wan Kenobi do it. I recommend it highly.