Entertaining, yet flawed

Rating: 6/10 (24 January 2001)

Gladiator, though entertaining, is one of the most overrated movies of the year.
The biggest problem with this movie is the direction during the battle and fight sequences. The camera is too close to the action. This closeness causes many problems. First of all, the close camera work during the fight scenes left me feeling cheated. The close camera work puts us into the action a little too much, and some of the fight sequences weren't as exciting as they could have been if there were a few wide shots put in there. This closeness also made the "special effects" of the Colosseum look hokey. The people siting in the nosebleed sections of the stadium looked fake (granted, they WERE computer generated, but shouldn't they at least appear real?).
Other problems with this movie include cliches ("On my signal, unleash hell"), anachronisms (Maximus says something in Italian, though the language doesn't appear until much later) and historical inaccuracies (Marcus Aurelius didn't die that way the last time I checked)
Other than that, this movie is an entertaining one. The acting is excellent, especially by Joaquin Phoenix as the evil twit Commodus. All in all, I would recommend this movie simply for entertainment purposes. As for Best Picture of the year...I think not.
**1/2 out of ****