Imperfect, but engaging and entertaining

Rating: 7/10 (24 February 2001)

Gladiator strives to be more then a brainless big-budget action movie, in that sense, it deserves credit. The question is, though, does Gladiator actually manage to do this?
In a way, yes. The storyline, while fairly linear and lacking a huge amount of complexity, manages to give proper motivation to each character and it flows smoothly. There never is any doubt what a character is doing in any given scene. The characters are even well-defined, which is more than can be said for the vast majority of its ilk.
However, Gladiator does have its problems. There is no joy, and little emotion to this movie. Everyone who is in this movie is either vengeful, depressed, angry, or just plain said. It's a rather cold movie, in that way... compared to its fellow Best Picture nominee Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which exudes warmth and emotion), Gladiator is extremely cold and joyless. While the storyline does do a good job of saying why everyone acts like this, it still doesnt help the fact that the movie is extremely cold. Im not asking for a tacked-on love story, just a little bit more emotion then anger or depression.
Still, that aside, the movie does manage to stay entertaining. Some parts dont seem to flow quite well, but, for the most part, it is good. The many facets of what is going on (for example, Commodus' dealings with the Senate) are well represented, and Ridley Scott manages to do a good job of sticking with these topics and dealing with them.
Gladiator has its fair share of special effects, and they are very nice. Fitting in with the theme of the movie, however, much of it is filmed in drab earth tones. The early scenes are extremely blue or red, but never in between. Compared to a movie like "Titus" (to be fair, that movie only kinda-sorta takes place in Rome, but I digress), Gladiator is quite dull looking. Still, most of it does fit - the Colosseums look as one would think, as does everything else. But the movie definitely is not vivid, nor beautiful to look at. But it does look nice. A lot of the camerawork is good, but a special point must be made about some battle sequences (both the opening, and some effects used in the gladiator battles). There is just too much herky-jerky effects... enough to distract one from the actual event. In Braveheart or Saving Private Ryan, the camera moved around a lot, to be sure, but at least one still got a good feel for what is going on. With this movie, the cameraman fell so in love with these techniques that he neglected that people would actually want to know whats going on.
Still, in spite of these flaws (some more significant then others), Gladiator is a very good movie. It is entertaining (although it does get boring at parts) and it does tell a good tale. However, compared to a movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (the two movies do have a lot of similar elements), Gladiator does come out as being the inferior one. But, that doesnt mean it's a bad movie - in fact, its probably worth a spot in a movie fan's collection.