("Blood & Guts in Ancient Rome" - sorry ladies, this film is *not* called "Russell Crowe gets his Kit Off")

Rating: 8/10 (27 May 2000)

An epic worthy of the best traditions of this sort of cinema. Top notch acting, an opening battle scene that almost does for that time period what Saving Private Ryan did for WW2 - it recreates the sheer horror inflicted by the Roman Army. Later, the actual gladiator scenes in Rome are also convincingly portrayed. The cerebral elements where we follow the moral strengths and weaknesses of the characters give it more substance than a mere action movie. Its main weakness is probably that which most big Hollywood epics have had - no more than a passing attempt to use the film as an art form - this, as the gladiator organizer says, is entertainment. (Note - from the little history I've been able to glean, the storyline - who kills who - seems to be largely fiction, although the portrayal of the characters of the main players seems reasonable enough and the other details are apparently quite well constructed. So we get quite a reasonable picture of the Empire in this context if we ignore the plot. Perhaps some historians reading this will want to add details about the lives and deaths of Marcus Aurelius, Maximus and Commodus just to keep the record straight.)