Product: Gladiator [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 2.0
this COULD have been a good movie...
but they blew it. I must say I'm surprised at all the 5-star reviews. The dramatic scenes are awful, starting with the confrontation between the emperor and his son. You can see everything coming a mile away, and the scenes are long and drawn out, filmed with the subtlety of a 'Jerry Springer' episode. You might as well have a narrator carefully explain to the audience exactly what they're supposed to feel, instead of allowing them to derive their experience from the acting and context. The character development of Commodus is appallingly simplistic and one-dimensional. I liked the general plot, and the scene where we first enter the great Coliseum is fantastic, but the scripting and directing are second-rate. Its as if they said.. "good enough, with our huge marketing campaign this'll make us a ton of money, why put in the effort to make it really good?" The climax was a joke. The set-up totally fails to suspend my disbelief, and you see the ending from two miles away, lending it the impact of a mouse fart. Braveheart is a similar movie carefully (and well) made. I might rate it three stars for what good scenes it has, but it deserves to have one yanked for blowing the opportunity to make a truly good film.