I apologize for the little hiatus throughout the month. But I am back and ready to get into reviewing movies (and more) on a regular schedule. Reviews will be coming every Monday and Friday and/or Saturday. Here, we’re going to take a look at yet another movie that makes me tear up more than once. I’m seeing a lot of those kinds of films recently, aren’t I? This is Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.
Being the Academy Award winner for Best Picture for the year 2000 and directed by Ridley Scott, Gladiator seemed like it would be quite the grand movie. It’s set in Ancient Rome, and is about a Roman Legion general, Maximus, played by Russell Crowe. His family, his home, his rank, his freedom, basically his whole life is taken away from him when the new emperor, Commodus, takes power. Homeless and powerless, he’s taken as a slave into the gladiatorial arena matches. From there, it’s his journey up from the pits of slavery to getting his rightful vengeance.
Revenge stories are already pretty interesting, for the most part… but when it’s a Roman Legion general that’s ticked off and dead set on killing an emperor… things get a lot more compelling. I may not know a lot about Ancient Rome, but it does fascinate me, and I love most things set in this time period and place. I was ready to dive into this, and I must say that I was quite impressed. I can definitely see why it won best picture. But I wouldn’t call this film entirely flawless.
First, the things I liked about this movie: The acting, cinematography, and musical score are all simply stupendous. Russell Crowe delivers a great performance all throughout the film. The character he plays is sympathetic and the way Maximus’s arch was written made the story that much more engaging. The supporting cast does a good job as well, with Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus and Connie Nielsen as Lucilla, one of Maximus’s only allies during his struggle to get revenge. There wasn’t a single weak performance in the entire film. The child actor even did a good job, and that’s pretty rare. As I stated earlier, I did tear up more than once. Not just because of what happened to these characters, but because of how perfectly the actors conveyed the feelings. It felt so genuine that I felt all that they were. I applaud movies that achieve this.
The cinematography was also excellent. This is a beautifully shot film, and as far as I’ve seen in movies, I honestly don’t think Ancient Rome has looked any better than it does in Gladiator. Not only does it look nice, but it helps convey the emotions of the characters. These two elements go hand in hand amazingly well. I should also mention the action sequences. This is a drama, and a damn good one at that, but it’s a drama set in Ancient Rome. It’s a law that there needs to be some sort of bloodshed. Gladiator has the best of both worlds- enough violence in it to keep you entertained (will you not be entertained?!) balanced with a compelling and dramatic story. It’s just as well shot as the scenery. You may like that it’s very bloody and gritty, but not stylized and flashy like, say, Zack Snyder’s 300. I was asking myself “how did they do that safely?!” a few times. Especially when they brought in the tigers. Yes. Real tigers. CGI wasn’t exactly good enough at the time this came out to have very convincing tigers or animals, so they used real ones. They didn’t even green screen them into the scenes, they were on set with the actors! That entire sequence was impressive, to say the least.
The last major thing that I loved about this film was the musical score by Hans Zimmer. Zimmer is without a doubt one of the best composers of our time. Whenever I see his name attached to a film, I immediately want to check out the soundtrack. I love this man’s work, and his score for Gladiator was just as good as I expected it to be. It was powerful and elegant in every sense of both words. My favorite track, called Now We Are Free was composed by Zimmer and sung by Lisa Gerrard. It is one of my favorite tracks to any film, and it greatly compliments the rest of Hans Zimmer’s score.
As much as I’ve sort of been gushing over this film, there were a few things that I thought could’ve been a little different. Mainly these issues are with the main character, Maximus. He’s a great fighter, and Russell Crowe does an excellent job in the role… but there was something about him that I felt was lacking. I think it was the fact that he wasn’t as engaging as he could have (or should have) been. He’s a sympathetic character, and the film does a great job at making you want to see him succeed, but I personally felt that I didn’t know the character very deeply enough. And I watched the extended edition, so I don’t know what it would’ve been like if I’d watched the theatrical version.
The other, smaller issues were with only smaller elements of the story, little bits that I either didn’t quite get or didn’t think were very well fleshed out or explored. But with those lesser issues, it’s really more like nitpicking at them, however not entirely unjustified.
Other than those few issues, I thoroughly enjoyed Gladiator. It was well deserving of the Oscars it won, and I wouldn’t mind owning it on Blu Ray, either. If you haven’t seen it, then I do suggest checking it out. If you’re anything like me, you’ll definitely get teary-eyed at the end. And any movie that can do that might just be worth giving a try.
FINAL RATING: 44 / 50
STORY: 4 /5
ACTING: 5 / 5
CHARACTERS: 4 /5
CINEMATOGRAPHY: 5 / 5
ACTION/DRAMA: 5 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: 5 / 5
TONE: 5 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 5 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 3 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 3 / 5
Oh, it’s been too long since I’ve written a review. I remember why I love doing it now. And don’t worry, I’ll do my best to uphold my regularly scheduled posts. Again, they’ll be every Monday and Friday and/or Saturday. I won’t be a slacker this year like I was in 2015. Even though at this point I may not get many reads on my posts, I don’t care. I love writing these reviews anyway, and I am thankful for each person that reads them. Let’s make 2016 a good one.
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