Russell Crowe gives another great performance!

Rating: 9/10 (1 August 2000)

Gladiator is an awesome movie with an awesome cast and an awesome director. Starring Russell Crowe in one of his better roles, Gladiator combines the blood/violence of Saving Private Ryan, the story of a Ben-Hur type deal and grand acting to create a web of decite, lies, fights, and death.
Russell Crowe is a well respected general - Maximus. The beginning is like Saving Private Ryan, where the barbarians and the Roman fight each other until one of the sides happens to fall, (the barbarian Germans.) Maximus, after the battle, meets with the emperor who tells him that he is dying and giving the empire to his control. When the emperor's son hears the news, he tries to do all he can do to get the crown (played by Joaquin Pheonix.)
In order to gain control, the emperor's son takes the lives of Maximus's son and wife. Maximus becomes a slave/gladiator and learns from one of the best gladiators of all time to regain his freedom - he has to win the spectators before he can win the emperor. Later in the story, Maximus meets up with the new emperor in the Colloseum and the story goes from there.
Russell Crowe gives another Academy Award worthy performance. Gladiator is one of the best films of the new millennium!