Gladiator nearly killed by writing

Rating: 8/10 (23 March 2009)

Everything's better now. The acting, the photography, the sound, the editing, the costumes (Roman indigo too, not purple), the effects and the art design. The action sequences, the location work. OK, there are some anachronisms and the history is fictionalized, and the stunts were impressive in the 1920s too. Still, everything's better now. Except the writing.
If Charlton Heston, Yul Brinner, and Anne Baxter were reading this film's dialogue you would hear how dreadful it really is. It's a tribute to modern actors like Crowe and Phoenix that they can make even things like "I shall have my vengeance-- in this life or the next!" sound as if someone might say them, somewhere, ever. Try it! This fight between quality actor and poor script is fought out within nearly every contemporary Hollywood blockbuster. Why? How much does a joke cost? Do audiences accept this as good writing? Why don't they demand better? To prove all this: watch the DVD with the sound off and the subtitles on. Yes, that's how hard Crowe and the rest had to work. THis movie deserves a 6 (a 9 with a -3 for the writing), but it gets an 8 because the actors are able to put the banalities over and make it sound convincing.