Product: Gladiator [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 1.0
1 star is generous
Maybe it was all the hype this movie received but I can not remember a movie that was worse than this one. I had to turn it off half way through to take a break before returning to the tripe. I was hoping that somewhere along the line it would get better. The only saving grace of this movie was Joaquin Phoenix. Russel Crowe's couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag. Only epic movie I have seen where I actually was hoping someone would kill the "hero" and put me out of my misery. With all the money that was spent on the movie I would have thought the computer generation would have at least been good, but even that was poor - the scene with the tigers was comical. As for the historical inaccuracies, using archers or saddles is minor, but a complete distortion of historical fact takes creative license too far. Did Scott bother to read any Roman hisory at all? First Aurelius - what the hell was Richard Harris doing in this movie - was not killed by his son Commodus, Aurelius had made Commodus co-emperor several years before he died, Commodus had his sister Lucilla executed after a failed assination attempt, and Commodus was strangled while taking a bath after a failed poisoning attempt by his mistress. The most amusing thing about the film was that with all the British, Irish, and Australian accents I started to think that the British Empire started long before it actually did. Overall, a thoroughly terrible movie. How this movie can be nominated for Best Picture is beyond me. If you want to see a great movie of this type go rent Spartacus or Ben Hur.