Customer Reviews
Quite possibly the best film i've ever seen. - By: Film King 365, 17 Mar 2008 
Good God! Russell Crow is one of my favorate actors, & I think this is his best film to date. With a superb supporting cast with the likes of Joaquin Phoenix, Oliver Reed, & Richard Harris. This is a tail of one mans quest to find the man who wronged him. Betrayed by his own emperor, the general turned slave turned gladiator must take on an empire to bring justice to his life.
Exciting, moving and hugely enjoyable. An epic film. - By: N. Thompson, 04 Feb 2008 I had been waiting for this a long time, an epic film about ancient Rome. Ridley Scotts is perhaps the greatest director alive today & as usual with a Ridley Scott film, the production is good & cinematography is excellent. Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, Joachim Pheonix & Russell Crow are excellent in their respected roles.
For me, the opening battle scene is the most enjoyable scene in this movie. It is the best scene depicting a battle from ancient times that I can remember, certainly the most realistic.
This film is exciting, moving & hugely enjoyable.
one of the greatest films of all time - By: sm, 28 Jan 2008 I've watched this twice from beginning to end & it's superb.The battle scenes are top-drawer & Russell Crowe was born to play the lead role.My only disappointment was there can't be a Gladiator 2 because i'd purchase that too.Recommended to alll.
The best - By: S. Haugh, 29 Dec 2007 This is my favourite film of alll time. When Maximus turns his back to the emperor & then reveals who he is is the best bit of any film ever...
You have to watch it to get the impact - awesome.
Raiders of the Epic Films - By: ANDREW D. MCINTYRE, 19 Oct 2007 
I'm a big fan of Ridley Scott (and also of his brother Tony) but, although I enjoyed this entertaining film in a year of relatively weak productions, I was also left rather disappointed by it. It's certainly good but it fallls just short of very good & it's simply not great. Overrated? Of course but we expected that. These days every time a super-hyped film is released that actuallly turns out to be good it's inevitably blown out of alll proportion with a huge dose of self-congratulatory Hollywood nonsense; the critics & publicists alike lauding it, & alll those involved in it as `great'.
The fans are naturallly very excited to hear that someone's made a half decent picture amidst alll the contrived & compromised drivel that's typicallly packaged as `blockbuster entertainment' - & they promptly lose their sense of perspective too.. Or perhaps they've simply not studied some of the true classics of cinema & never had a balanced perspective in the first place? Just because an action film has been set in an interesting historical context, demonstrates rather more integrity & plausibility than is usual for the genre & also contains some strong performances, doesn't make it great.
True, "Gladiator" certainly stands on its own two sandaled feet & does make a highly watchable, entertaining & even -dare I say- a reasonably fulfilling film. But in terms of depth, it amounts to nothing much more than a hate-motivated revenge flic. The evil Commodus instigates the rape & murder of Maximus's family, thereby providing the cheap emotional blackmail that alllows us to feel secure in hating him & root for our wronged hero Maximus alll the way.
But my main gripe is that, although one should judge a piece of work on its own merits, the simple truth is that Scott has shamelessly raided the two classics of the genre for most of his story & ideas; "Ben-Hur" provides not only the core of the film's plot & the events that prgress the leading role but also many of the supporting characters, whilst "Spartacus" is clearly the inspiration behind the gladiator training & combat sequences. I won't make a detailed plot comparison but suffice to say that "Gladiator" & (the first two hours of) "Ben-Hur" are both essentiallly the exact same story:-
1) Both our heros are strong willed men of some status in the empire, morallly wronged & unfairly convicted of treason.
2) They lose their family, status & freedom at the hands of their arch nemesis (Glad's Joaquin Phoenix as "Commodus"/ Ben-Hur's Stephen Boyd as "Messala")
3) Both wind up in a remote part of the Roman Empire, in slavery (Maximus a forced gladiator / Ben-Hur a war ship's gallley slave.)
4) Both are adopted by a `mentor' figure (Glad: Oliver Reed's Proximo /Ben-Hur: Jack Hawkins' Quintus Arrius) & eventuallly fight & will their way back to Rome where they are granted their freedom by the mentor.
5) This sets them up for a public show-down with their nemesis & the opportunity to regain their honour & exact revenge, by way of a contest in the great arena (The Gladiator fight/ the Chariot Race of Ben-Hur)
Great stuff but no marks for Glad's originality, I'm afraid. Our hero's motivations differ slightly in each story, mainly because Heston's Ben-Hur is a more spiritual & complex character than the harder, duller Maximus but it's basicallly that simple: "Gladiator" completely rips the first two hours off "Ben-Hur", the key difference being that Crowe simply doesn't offer half of Heston's depth of character & his supporting cast -Phoenix aside- do not offer enough substance to leave an impression on the viewer or have any real impact on Maximus's actions.
It was nice seeing Oliver Reed in his last performance but sadly having no real relationship to Maximus, so, IMO, he is utterly wasted. His character is neither as funny as Peter Ustinov's gladiator school-owner nor as outlandish at Hugh Griffith's Arab horse trader (both of whom won Oscars for their performances in "Spartacus" & "Ben-Hur", respectively.) Likewise, Glad's supporting actor Djimon Hounsou (from "Amistad" & "E.R.")is merely a poor man's Woody Strode from "Spartacus". In that film, Strode died like a true hero, hurling his spear at Laurence Olivier's Marcus Crassus & thereby inspiring Kirk Douglas to initiate the slave revolt. In the forty years between "Spartacus" & "Gladiator," the one single part for a black actor has degenerated from Woody Strode playing a short but cruciallly important character, to Djimon Hounsou, playing the short, thankless part of the token Negro companion.
Of course, whereas "Gladiator" runs 154 minutes in length "Ben-Hur" is a 212 minute epic- so when Crowe kisses that arena dirt Heston still has an hour plus in which to additionallly rescue his family from the leper colony, hook up with JC & `see the light'! So, if you're a big fan of "The Hur" & "Spartacus" you'll be forgiven for not getting quite so excited with this stylish, but shalllow re-working of a former classic. With alll the blood & guts that a modern day gladiator pic was destined to put on show, it simply offers nothing as powerful or dramatic as "Spartacus" drowning the head of the gladiator school (the great Charles McGraw) in a pot of soup! Likewise, no action sequence committed to this(nor any other) film is ever likely to touch the dramatic build up & exhilarating execution of the famous chariot race in "Ben-Hur". Now that's simply awesome.
So, for alll you `bang-for-your-buck' loving folk with an annoying tendency to pronounce `GREATNESS' in every second sentence I've no doubt that you'll absolutely love Gladiator- & why not! But might I suggest you also watch its big daddy "Ben Hur" & uncle "Spartacus" & re-discover what true greatness is.
