Gladiator film review

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GLADIATOR

British director Ridley Scott makes an early bid for the summer box office crown with his 100 million dollar sword and sandals epic, a muscular and bold combat film threaded with scenes of graphic gore which should have cinema audiences baying for blood for months to come.

The hero of the day is Maximus (Russell Crowe), a general in the army of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) who is adored as much by his men as he is by the Emperor.

Aurelius has always treated Maximus like his own flesh and blood, and confides that when he steps down, he would like the general to become the defender of Rome and work alongside the Senate to govern the city.

The Emperor's weasel-like son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) is not best pleased by this show of family disloyalty and murders the old man in a fit of jealousy. He assumes the throne and orders the immediate execution of the gallant Maximus, the sole threat to his rule.

Barely escaping death, Maximus is forced into slavery and is trained as a gladiator by the debonair Proximo (Oliver Reed). Just as fearsome in the arena as he is on the battlefield, Maximus soon slaughters his way to the Colosseum in Rome where his rising popularity sets him on a collision course with the increasingly unpopular Commodus.

Scott opens his film with the battle between the Roman legions and the barbarians in the forest of Germania, a jaw-dropping 10 minute sequence of unbridled brutality which recalls the D-Day landings of Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.

The pace barely slackens for the remaining two hours 20 minutes, moving to the deserts of North Africa for his gladiatorial training and then back to Rome for the games and the final showdown.

Like Titanic, Gladiator is more concerned with delivering a spectacle than with coherent plot or character development. Some of the dialogue creaks badly and has a tendency towards the florid.

Crowe shoulders leading man duties with obvious relish. His all-consuming desire to avenge the death of his wife and son is palpable, and lends Maximus an unexpected emotional depth and complexity.

Rising star Phoenix is deliciously slimy as the vindictive Emperor, oscillating between illicit lust for his sister Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) to homicidal madness as he contemplates killing her son, the heir to the throne.