After a Roman soldier is betrayed by his emperor's son he is sold into slavery and forced to fight as a gladiator.

Rating: 7/10 (14 June 2014)

"Gladiator" comes out of the gate swinging, immediately opening on the battlefield. Caesar Marcus Aurelius stands off to the side of the battle watching General Maximus Meridius (Crowe) lead his troops to yet another victory. After the battle Maximus longs to return to his family, but Marcus Aurelius wishes to have Maximus succeed him as a regent, in a step towards eventually turning Rome back into a republic. Aurelis feels that his son Commodus is too unjust to rule and that Maximus will unselfishly give Rome back to the people. Commodus learns of his father's plan and before anyone else is informed of the Caesar's wishes he is killed by his son. Commodus then takes control of Rome and condemns Maximus and his family to death when Maximus refuses to pledge his loyalty to the new Caesar.
This film is the first large scale movie set in ancient Rome since the 1960′s; it basically combines the plots of "Ben-Hur" and "Sparticus" then adds a dash of "Braveheart" for good measure. "Gladiator" is the first movie I've reviewed that had me torn between two numbers to the point that I had to incorporate a half option in my stats section. This movie is director Ridley Scott's first since his box office bomb "G.I. Jane," which lost over 40 million dollars. Luckily for Scott this movie was well received by critics in addition to being a commercial success. "Gladiator" won five academy awards including best picture, and grossed over 180 million dollars, but I feel it still had flaws. In my review I will focus mainly on the problems that I had with the movie rather than its merit. 'Gladiator' is fourteen years old and it is still considered a notable success, and anything positive I have to say on top of that would simply be redundant.
To begin, Ridley Scott hired historians to ensure that this would be the most accurate movie ever made about Rome, but the story is still full of historical inaccuracies. It is true, that sometimes history must be changed when making a movie to keep the audience interested or to keep the story progressing smoothly, but the inaccuracies to which I refer were sever enough to lead to one historian quitting Scott's team and another asking for their name to be removed from the credits. While I am not going to sit here and list every single deviation from historical fact, I do find the need to raise one query. Why does a Spanish born Roman general have an accent from Australia, a country that during the time period would not existed for over a thousand years? If I only had to review the first forty minutes of this movie, up until Maximus becomes a gladiator, I would consider it perfect. At this point the movie noticeably loses pace, and even the incorporation of the gladiator fight scenes do not help. Luckily, 'Glatiator' still has one ace up its sleeve, Commodus does not know that Maimus is the famous Spaniard. Oh wait, never mind, he finds out immediately following the first battle in the Colosseum! When Maximus removes his helmet to reveal his identity to Commodus he also removes the remaining tension. I wanted Maximus to thrust forward with the fury that only a man who has had his wife and child brutally slain could posses, and nothing.
The audience is left to trudge through another hour in a half of hollow fight scenes and Commodus' scheming. Another hour in a half of a second rate villain lusting after his own sister, listening to himself talk, and emitting seriously creepy vibes towards his nephew. Another hour in a half of plot and sub plot with its merit being outweighed by the urge to hit the fast forward button on the remote, just for a little bit. As the movie comes to a close the viewer is rewarded with one last mediocre fight scene pitting two completely unmatched opponents against each other, then poof, it ends. We are left wondering what could have been if everything went right, like the star quarterback that blew out his knee right before going pro.