Product: Gladiator [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 2.0
This won Best Picture?!?
This has to be one of the very worst films to acquire an Oscar for Best Picture. I haven't seen many of the other contenders in that class -- I hear "The Greatest Show on Earth" is worth avoiding even more -- but this must have been a quirk of how the voting split that year. I figure the Politically Active types split between "Brockovich" and "Traffic," the Art for Art's Sake vote went to "Chocolat," leaving a bare plurality voting for this over "Crouching Tiger..." because it wasn't subtitled. Or subtext'd.My first exposure to this was on video, so perhaps I missed something that's more evident on the big screen. I can't imagine what it would be, though. The battle scenes are impressive in a testostorone-charged way, I guess. The Colosseum is very lifelike, and so is Mr. Crowe. I almost believed that he wanted his warriors to "Unleash hell." (And yes, I recognized that he was a soldier by duty, not desire, and therefore not a kill-em-all type.) He fought well enough in the gladiator scenes, which I suppose is the point...That's as well as I can do for compliments on this. The setup is obvious, the payoff is transparent -- I stopped watching halfway through and I was able to guess 90% of What Happens Next. I didn't care how Maximus plotted his revenge, if Commodus was served with appropriate justice or ... or pretty much anything else. Nobody is interesting enough to be likable. Commodus is almost creepy enough to be disliked, and that's as much of an impression as anything in the film made on me.Just don't bother. If you want a revenge-fueled battle-focused period piece, see The Patriot instead. ....Two stars, because I don't care enough to give it one.