What have the Romans ever done for us?

Rating: Null/10 (9 September 2000)

First, a declaration of interests: as someone with a lifelong interest in the classics and a working knowledge of Latin, there was simply no way that I could have not gone to see this film. The fact that it was by Ridley Scott, one of my favourite directors and a fellow Teessider, was the icing on the cake.
Sure enough, he hasn't disappointed. Gladiator is an excellent reinvention of the swords'n'sandals epic, a genre which all but died out decades ago. The plot and dialogue are pretty hackneyed, but Ridley Scott's trademark visuals and some excellent acting raise the game tremendously. The film's two great setpieces - the battle in Germania and the floor of the Colosseum in Rome - are outstandingly well realised by Scott, and the dream sequences (of the afterlife?) add a suitably mystical-melancholic element to the story.
Russell Crowe is, we already know, pretty darn good - see LA Confidential for proof - but in Gladiator he has been an absolute revelation. As Maximus, he is a brooding slab of improbably muscled masculinity, causing women to swoon and men to covertly measure their own pecs for comparison. Crowe dominates the film and completely overshadows the rest of the cast, few of whom, admittedly, are really worth mentioning. Poor Oliver Reed, had he lived, would have enjoyed a Travolta-like career comeback for his turn as Proximo, the Don King-with-a-heart gladiator turned fight promoter. The main protagonist, the usurping Emperor Commodus, is played by Joaquin Phoenix as an irritating spoiled brat - something which at first is just irritating but in the end is quite effective. (Having said that, it's also highly inaccurate, as the real Commodus was much older and ruled reasonably competently for more than a decade - but these days who expects authenticity from Hollywood?).
All in all, a very enjoyable, if somewhat shallow, film. It's nowhere near the same level as "Spartacus", the greatest Roman epic of them all (although it's rated nearly 80 places higher than that film on the top 250 - come on folks, get real!). Nonetheless, in a summer of very disappointing films Gladiator is a must-see.