Product: Gladiator [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 2.0
Sprawling Cinematic Fluff
I'm still quite surprised at the praise heaped onto "Gladiator" - even film critics I admire seem to believe that it represents the second coming of epic filmmaking. I could not disagree more - "Gladiator" is a terrible movie, a lumbering dunce of a film parading around like the next "Ben Hur." Russell Crowe is appropriately sinewy as Maximus and Richard Harris makes a fine Marcus Aurelius (if he were from the British Isles, that is), but everything else is so contrived as to be suffocating. Everything in the film is big and dumb and loud, and the producers apparently believed that an utterly abysmal script would be compensated by scenes of surprisingly dull, clanging combat, usually consisting of two armored men slinging swords around until somebody gets stabbed and falls over (and maybe a computer generated tiger is thrown in from time to time). I would have expected more creativity from Ridley Scott, but "Gladiator" reminds me most of "Braveheart" - it desperately wants to be a great film, but it simply doesn't have the script, talent, or purpose to be anything more than a glorified popcorn movie. I'm absolutely amazed that everyone I know worships this film...but to me, beneath Russell Crowe's charisma, the mock historical lesson, and the earsplitting battle scenes, there is absolutely nothing of consequence.