It revels in the kinky warrior fetish of grotesque armor, masks and even has a woman gladiator wearing an anatomically correct brass breastplate. When Proximo arrives in Rome with Maximus and his other slave-gladiators, Commodus is using the gory battles in the Coliseum to distract the Roman populace from the problems troubling the Empire. But, the filmmakers do not genuinely believe the parallel between ancient Rome before its ruin and today's ruling class exerting the same kind of mob control through the media. The message is just a way of giving the movie the appearance of being politically savvy and more importantly to provide an excuse to produce a film that is gorged with spectacle and atmosphere. Unfortunately, director Ridley Scott is unable to balance the set design and crystalline computer generated special effects with a sophisticated depiction of human nature and its relationship to politics and history.
Effect gets the best of substance in Gladiator , even in many of the battle and fight scenes.
It's the difference between watching a person hit another and feeling that blow. The script is full of lines that sound like manure falling on a soggy field. Maximus is too na ve to be believable. One wishes Commodus dead not because he is so vile, but because he is just plain annoying. The difference between TV wrestling and this movie is that the stuff on TV is not pretentious and a lot more fun to watch.