"I AM SPARTACUS!!"

Rating: 7/10 (26 December 2000)

The opening scene here is similar to the opening scene in "Saving Private Ryan"..just substitute horses for boats, tunics for fatigues and helmets for..well..really BIG FANCY helmets. Anyway... any time a movie kicks off with a severed head, you know you're in for some rollicking family fun. Even King Arthur takes a break from Camelot to join the party.
Seems that Commodus (Phoenix) is the Marcus "W" Aurelius of Rome. He wants his dad's old gig. Dad wants to give the job to workingman's hero Maximus (Crowe). Ergo...bye bye, Pops. Commodus then gets "Braveheart" on Maximus' ass, tearing up his vegetable garden, and his wife and kid. So what we got here is a WWF-worthy death-match type conflict. And away we go.....
In the immortal words of Peter Graves in "Airplane".."You like to watch gladiator movies, Timmy?". Well, you could do lots worse than this one. For starters, some neat cinematography courtesy John Mathieson. Djimon Hounsou doing his "noble savage" thing straight outa "Amistad". Derek Jacobi grabbing the "I Claudius" toga for a redux. Oliver Reed in a Moroccan approximation of Fagin. Connie Nielsen looking almost as good as she did in "Devil's Advocate". And Phoenix getting that nasty Jack Palance evil-eye thing down to a tee and pasting it onto a little Nigel Tufnel spoiled-rock-star panache. Hey. What's not to love here?
This is a real Dino De Laurentus type old-style epic. A "Spartacus" for x-genners. "Gladiator" is gonna take home a handful of awards for costuming, cinematography and scenic design, which it deserves. Not as certain about the major nominations, but nobody involved with this picture has anything to be ashamed of. Solid entertainment the way mama used to make it. And Crowe gets to go home to Meg Ryan either way...Oscar or not...and that's what I call a win-win situation, kiddies.
Saw this one on a big screen TV but if it goes back into theaters before the Oscars, I'll be on line. This has "Panavision" written all over it.