Product: Gladiator [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 3.0
Yawn.....
I just finished watching Gladiator. It's all right, but certainly not the great cinematic work it's being touted as. It was remarkably like Ben Hur. All it needed was Charlton Heston, a chariot race, and a few lepers. The background music was less than subtle. The music in itself was very nice, but the viewer gets beat over the head with the "choir of angels" bit. I heard a great deal about Joaquin Phoenix's performance as the evil Commodus as well. There were a few moments when he was very much like the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Instead of saying "I am vexed!", I was waiting for him to say, "That's it! Christmas is cancelled!" (at least Alan Rickman was comical and enteratining as well as menacing). I'm all about Russell Crowe in a skirt, but this just wasn't that great. Those of us who have just sat through all two and a half hours of this ho-hum yawn-fest salute you......