His values were the victors!

Rating: 10/10 (21 August 2008)

17) Gladiator by Margot Malone on May 28 2000
10+ helpful votes
I have been waiting for the big budget Roman epic ever since Spartacus...and Babies THIS IS IT!!!!Gladiator grabbed me by the gut and didn't let go...not even at the end...my body and psyche are still reverberating from its impact. The only other movie to have so visceral a reaction on me was Saving Private Ryan,for some similar reasons but more frequently for dissimilar ones. The impact of the incredibly orchesterated gladiatorial skirmishes tested my seat repeatedly but they were shot with such photographic skill and framed with such directorial insight that my body didn't go into total meltdown....unlike Private Ryans visions of carnage that ate away like acid at my very soul. Aside from the incredible photography, the intensity of the meld between storyboarding incredible angles and images that created such a sumptuous visual feast, and impeccable acting by a fine and long to be remembered cast... what stands out Most about this film are two things...The betrayal of devotion and Russell Crowe as Maximus whose will to decency and sense of honor made him a victim of the times he lived in. Good God almighty....there are few actors these days that could have brought this kind of raw masculinity to such resonance on the screen....but it is not just this that makes Crowe shine but his incredibly sensitive portrayal of Maximus as a man of the sword by his sense of duty, but a man of the soil in his heart. Crowes physicality and ability to translate Maximus to the screen is a performance worthy of an academy award...but it is Maximus who steals the show!!! His heart,his strength, his determination,his unfailing love for his family, his need for justice,...his Values are the Star of this film. He reminds me of Cyrano DE Bergerac in many ways....and I can give him no better accolade than that. There are so few role models for this age....characters like Maximus are what civilization is all about. He lived up to the heritage and meaning of his name...there is no more...there is no better...than to strive for decency, to uphold honor,to value family, to recognise duty to high ideals, to love the earth,to defend civilization at its best, and oppose tyranny,to cherish life...other lives as well as your own. Maximus was a product of his time, an honored soldier ultimately betrayed. This betrayal cost him the values he lived by for a while to pursue survival...ultimately his values were the victors...and it is they that made him a Hero.
Ridley Scott has given the big screen some of its most important and enduring images from Blade Runner to Alien..on and on...he continues to amaze with his ingeniuty at getting his vision transfixed in our minds...no less so here...his use of digital imagery to create Rome and the Colloseum alive with spectators is riveting. Joachin Phoenix is a wonderfully tormented Commodus with his deep and unrequited cravings for love and approval from his sister and his father to his vicious malevolance towards Maximus...what a contrast. He is showing talent far beyond the youth of his years. And the appearance of several of my personal favorites added all the extra spice to a film I was already in love with from the first battle scenes in Germania. These additional screen luminaries and legends were Richard Harris, duly sincere and remorseful as Marcus Aurelius, Derek Jacoby as a Senator hopeful of a new Rome,and the wonderful Oliver Reed, in his last role,as an ex-Gladiator turned provider of human fodder for THE GAMES. WOW!!!This is a film NOT to be missed,and the story of a man to be remembered!!!