Gladiator (2000)
The Cast
Russell Crowe ... Maximus
Joaquin Phoenix ... Commodus
Connie Nielsen ... Lucilla
Oliver Reed ... Proximo
Richard Harris ... Marcus Aurelius
Derek Jacobi ... Gracchus
Djimon Hounsou ... Juba
Spencer Treat Clark ... Lucius
Tommy Flanagan ... Cicero
If a movie has won a certain amount of critical acclaim and a bevy of awards, as part of my research when it comes to writing reviews I often look back and see what other movies it beat in certain categories. In case you're like me and had almost successfully pushed it out of your mind, Gladiator won the Best Picture award back in The Year 2000. The other nominees were Traffic, Erin Brockovich, Chocolat and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In my humblest of opinions, only one of those movies actually deserved to be nominated, and it wasn't a James Marshall-less Gladiator. Hell, Almost Famous wasn't even nominated and in my books that was one of the best pictures of the millenium let alone that specific year.
Now I'm not saying that Ridley Scott's Gladiator isn't a good movie, it's just not a great or timeless movie. Like many other Best Picture award winners, it doesn't stand up to the test of time, not the first of which is Russell Crowe's persistance in devolving into a knuckle-dragger. You know, I shouldn't say that because he might want to fight me or something. Anyways, the movie. If learning about the history of humans is one of your passions, don't watch this movie because it will just fill your head with all the wrong "facts". Anything that bears a resemblance to something that may have happened throughout human history in this movie was more than likely adapted from some other story or legend about some other character, since Maximus (Crowe) didn't even exist.
Who cares about all that though right? You're sitting down to a movie called mother fucking GLADIATOR you want blood and guts and sweaty men pummelling one another to within an inch of their meaningless lives. Fire, battles, arrows and horses and swords 'n shit. I haven't done the exact calculations, but it felt like that stuff happened in about maybe a quarter of the movie. And it's 155 minutes long. Almost 40 minutes of intense action. The rest of the movie is mostly filled up with Joaquin Phoenix acting far more creepy than he did as Johnny Cash (and anyone who says Johnny Cash didn't seem creepy in Walk the Line is lying to themselves). Oh, and Russell Crowe acting like William Wallace, that's about the whole movie right there.
For the most part the movie looks quite stunning... until the so real it hurts reality CGI effects and camera tricks come into play. There are some positives in the film, mostly with the fine supporting cast... as long as you don't include Phoenix as part of that supporting cast. Richard Harris, Djimon Hounsou, Oliver Reed and the beautiful Connie Nielsen were all splendid and elegant and what not, exactly what they needed to be. But let me tell you something: watching this movie brought back horrible memories of The Thin Red Line. After Richard Harris dies and the shit starts hitting Maximus and everything in his life goes to hell, I was bored. Nobody on the screen commanded my attention, and all they did was talk it seemed.
I think when Gladiator first came out, we were all stunned by how intense the battle scenes and everything looked. I can't explain the Academy Award nominations other than maybe there was something in the Hollywood water at the time that made people hallucinate with their new-fangled DVD players, seeing something in the movie that just wasn't there. Crowe's performance isn't noteworthy at all, and generally I just disliked the movie. I will acknowledge that it looks great and the supporting cast performed miracles, but repeated viewings do nothing to enhance Gladiator's already diminished reputation. This isn't me just being snarky because Almost Famous wasn't nominated, just so you know.
3 / 5