Great directing by Ridley Scott

Rating: 10/10 (28 May 2000)

Ridley Scott has done it again (creating a superb motion picture, like Blade Runner and Thelma & Louise). This time, he has made the first good picture on Imperial Rome since "Spartacus", a picture appealing even to those who do not appreciate the genre. From the opening scene to the film´s closing, the audience is drawn into the story and into history, led by brilliant camera work, solid acting, a captivating musical soundtrack setting the mood for every scene without interfering with the picture, and brilliant cinematography. Characters are well developed and realistic, true to historic records (in fact, history tells us that Commodus, the Emperor, was even more of a megalomaniac than he is portrayed in the picture. If the script writer had portrayed him as he really was, audiences would probably have considered it as too much of a Hollywood cliché...). The computer-designed scenarios are breathtaking, notably of the Colisseum.