Product: Gladiator [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 4.0
Gladiator (Extended Edition)
I love this movie, and I can almost love this DVD. The 200+minute documentary is amazingly in-depth in many aspects of the film, but is astonishingly deficient in one significant area: CASTING. Features on weapons, costumes, the conception and writing, visual effects are all extraordinarily in-depth on the level of the LOTR EEs, but with the exception of Oliver Reed (who unfortunately passed away during the filming), hardly anything else is mentioned about how the movie was cast. There was hardly or no mention at all about how major actors Russell Crowe, Richard Harris or Joaquin Phoenix were approached about doing this movie, and why they were chosen. In fact, there is no section of this documentary focusing on actors at all (again, except for Oliver Reed). I think some details were mentioned here and there in the commentary, but it's absence from the main documentary is rather puzzling. It leaves a rather large void in what would have been one of the best documentaries on DVDs I've seen.