Product: Gladiator [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 3.0
Yes, but we've seen this all before.
When Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) admits to favoring the general Maximus (Russell Crowe) as his successor, instead of his dishonest son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), Commodus takes steps to ensure that his father's wishes are never realized, to the detriment of Aurelius, Maximus, their families and to Rome herself.This beautifully executed, gorgeously photographed and wonderfully acted film is also (unfortunately) almost totally unoriginal. Avid filmgoers have already seen this again and again, even down to the tiresome clichés like the perplexing convention that all nefarious despots seem be a tad effeminate. There will be few surprises for those who have seen such films as the two versions of Ben-Hur (1926, 1959), The Robe (1953), Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) and Spartacus (1960), not to mention Anthony Mann's equally sprawling The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) of which this is very close to being a remake.Ridley Scott makes it all palatable to modern audiences who have come to expect large doses of snazzy computer graphics and frenetic action scenes (with the concomitant sprinklings of realistic gore). Here Scott brilliantly employs the "strobe effect" photography which Spielberg put to good use recently in his Saving Private Ryan. Alas, some of these scenes are completely over-the-top, with Crowe easily disposing of five or six heavily armed opponents without even breaking a sweat -- glaring incongruities, and often unintentionally laughable, in an otherwise beautifully detailed and painstakingly accurate treatment.If you haven't seen the aforementioned films, this film may delight you from beginning to end. If you have seen those films, there is still lots here to recommend this film, though don't expect any surprises.