Product: Gladiator [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 4.0
A vast improvement, but it's still no Fall of the Roman Empire
The extended cut of Gladiator still has many of the problems of the original but doesn't feel as disjointed or quite so disappointing. It's not just that it has more room to breathe, more that the additional footage, particularly the scenes away from Maximus where the future of Rome takes center-stage, raise the stakes beyond the simplistic revenge tale the theatrical version all too often settled for. The climactic fight with Commodus is still a major disappointment not just because it's so underwhelmingly staged but because, unlike The Fall of the Roman Empire, the film it relentlessly plagiarises, Commodus is never a credible threat: where Mann gave him foolhardy courage, Scott has implied he's a coward throughout until even a wounded hero can't even the odds. It's still no Fall, but it is a more satisfying film than the one released in cinemas. Very impressive extra features too.