A very good movie - in spite of its grand spectacle style

Rating: 8/10 (25 August 2005)

Gladiator is 2 1/2 hours long and I watched it in two parts. I agree completely with "gregatory" (another reviewer - see that review) in most respects.
Russel Crowe is clearly one of the greatest actors alive today. His role here is nothing short of that. Also the description of the almost impossibly gory battle scene in the beginning (as well as the gladiator scenes later), could be trivial blood and gore performances. But they are not. It is clear how brutal these things were, but the craft the the producers use to portray them makes them sensible and tolerable. What we see is the horror of war - even before anybody had a gun or cannon or bomb.
Frankly, I was put off by the performance of Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus. He played a despicable and weak, palsied man so well it seemed his acting was equally bad. It annoyed me and I almost panned the movie for that. But I believe that was a personal bias. Apparently the role was just that - awful, the man was awful, that is.
The second part (for me) fit together with the plot and was quite credible. Still the movie lacked something to make it absolutely great. It was also somewhat predictable - not an ingenious plot.
So I rate it as very very good (8 points) but not great. As I mentioned though, Russel Crowe is great. I think, like Clint Eastwood, he is typecasting himself. His role and performance does remind me of Capt. Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander.
He is definitely the Commander.