Magic!

Rating: 10/10 (8 January 2005)

I loved Gladiator. It's moving and makes you really feel absorbed by the Roman world, as director Scott aims. It doesn't matter if many historical details are not right. Scott depicts the period as an excellent painter and the screenplay is full of beautiful sentences that remain impressed in your memory. Russell Crowe is absolutely gorgeous in the virile role of Maximus, the general/peasant/family-man who becomes a hero not only because he is an excellent soldier and leader, but mainly because of his humanity and his solidity (strength and honor! ), his principles and his moral values. Leader/manager roles suite Russell Crowe best. His voice impresses: he can roar like the tigers he fights against in the arena, but he is also able to whisper love words in the sweetest way. He definitely deserved the Oscar for this movie, certainly also for other movies like A Beautiful Mind, but especially for playing Maximus. The plot may be simple, but the study of the characters' minds and the historical period are what really matters in this movie. The actors' performance is splendid. The unrelenting, massive fight scenes can be appreciated also by a woman when they are breathtaking and are depicted like that. Gladiator made me think of certain characters in Shakespeare's plays, who live as if they were caught in the "wheel of history".