Gladiator

Rating: Null/10 (11 November 2012)

I was entertained! Ridley Scott's Gladiator is stunningly beautiful—visually, aurally, and semantically: a complete artistic achievement. The recreation of Ancient Rome is something to behold. The musical score by Hans Zimmer, featuring gorgeous vocals by Lisa Gerrard, is rousing and touching. Convincing, interesting, and moving acting performances abound, with standouts by Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi, and Djimon Hounsou. The story is pure, distilled, derivative blockbuster/epic. The originality of Gladiator is found in its focused reduction of common movie ore into golden nuggets: essential, concentrated elements that have been grandly designed and then boiled down to make viewers alternately cry, laugh, and cheer—in a big way. Although we are spattered with occasional "political" discussions about Republic versus Empire, there is no social commentary here about the Roman system breeding corruption, and who needs it? The emperor wants an empire; the senate prefers a republic. Evil is personified in Commodus (Phoenix), the scheming, cowardly, childish, jealous, lecherous, murderous son of Marcus Aurelius (Harris), who tries to tiptoe over his only son (as if he wouldn't notice or care), by choosing as his successor "Rome's greatest general" Maximus (Crowe) to become the "protector of Rome" and to "end the corruption." "Commodus is not a moral man," Marcus Aurelius reminds Maximus, giving his reason why his son should not rule. Good is personified in Maximus, the strong, loyal, moral, brave, good-natured, hands-on, fighting family man, who swears to uphold Marcus Aurelius's wish to give Rome back to its people. But, alas, Commodus doesn't take the news from his father too well, and he kills Marcus Aurelius and takes over anyway. Then he orders Maximus, his wife, and his son to be killed. But Maximus escapes! But he can't get to his family in time to prevent their demise. And so, the perfectly justifiable tale of revenge has been perfectly set into motion. Commodus doesn't know that Maximus has survived his plot, and his own egotistical plan to make the people of Rome "love him" (since his father obviously didn't)—instead of serving the people (by tending to plagues and so forth)—becomes the vehicle by which Maximus will eventually take his revenge, and Commodus will meet his own undoing. The second act "delivers the goods" as Maximus is enslaved and then converted into a gladiator. In perfect movie irony, his skills garnered from leading real battles in defense of Rome against its enemies enable Maximus to make a name for himself ("The Spaniard") in the entertainment arena; and Commodus's schedule of gladiatorial games, meant to distract the people of Rome from their real problems and attract them to his "loving" rule, pulls the now famous gladiator Maximus, incognito, to the Coliseum. The gladiatorial action sequences don't disappoint. What may slightly disappoint, for some, is the highly unlikely showdown, in which the emperor, who has already successfully detected and foiled the plot to overthrow him, offers Maximus a one-on-one battle with him in the Coliseum. The possible disappointment comes not just from the improbability of the offer (after all, the fact that both Commodus and Maximus are alive at this point is improbable enough), or from the showdown itself, or its outcome, but from the machinations through which we arrive at the showdown. After all of the battles that Maximus has had to survive to arrive on Commodus's doorstep, it would have been purer had Maximus fought his way to the final confrontation, rather than having been granted a "shot at the title." What if Maximus had successfully reunited with his men, so that we actually witness the return of their loyalties to him, as well as a battle with those still loyal to Commodus, in an effort to restore Rome's greatness? Still, we do get a championship bout between Good personified and Evil personified, and Maximus—whose belief in an afterlife (spiritual and/or historical), which the film highly commends ("What we do in life, echoes in eternity")—deservedly rejoins his family at their incorporeal home.