What Price "Truth"?

Rating: 5/10 (17 May 2006)

"Gladiator" is an entertaining movie. It is NOT historically accurate, or even plausible for that matter. Here are a few facts:
-There was a Roman Emperor named Commodus who reigned from 180 to 193 AD (not as one reviewer mentions, "around 100-50 BC").
-Commodus loved the "bread and circuses" of the arena and even engaged in gladitoral combat. Commodus was a skilled swordsman, but his fights were almost always rigged so he had a distinct advantage over his opponents. For example, a fully armoured Commodus, with helmet, sword and spear, would fight a naked opponent armed only with a net and a trident. He recorded 753 victories in as many fights.
-Commodus was NOT killed in the arena. He was poisoned by his servants and then strangled by a wrestler they had hired, just in case the poison didn't work fast enough.
-No Roman general named Maximus ever challenged Commodus in the coliseum.
Now, I have no problem with a certain amount of dramatic license, but "Gladiator" goes beyond plausibility. If the real life Commodus had faced a challenge like the one poised by fictional General/Gladiator Maximus, surely there would have been a tragic "accident" in the combatant's quarters and Maximus would have been easily eliminated shortly after his arrival in Rome. Given the absolute power and infinite resources wielded by an Emperor of Rome, it's highly unlikely that such a challenger would have gotten as far as Maximus did in the film. But hey, that's what makes movies fun: the "what if" factor. Still, to blatantly lie about how an actual historical figure meets his death is, well, it's dishonest, and a little dangerous, too.
Will future generations applaud a film in which Adolph Hitler is gunned down by heroic Allied troops instead of committing suicide in his bunker? Is that acceptable? Does it matter? I think so.