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Gladiator Reviews
Gladiator, a movie that has had action-starved salivating for months on the Internet, is here today. And it delivers.
No matter how much the film may seem to condemn the life-wasting brutality of the arena, there's no denying that these grisly onscreen struggles offer moviegoers an approximation of the thrill the ancient Romans must have felt.
There's more show than substance, more noise than music, more circus than bread. Romans would understand.
The real revelation is Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus. Nothing in his career to date gave a hint of the subtlety and control he brings to the part of the cold, misanthropic emperor.
Solid acting and gaudy production values give Gladiator appeal to higher-brow patrons; less discerning viewers can enjoy the blood and gore.
One of the slighter films to ever win the Best Picture Oscar.
The same sturdy conventionality that made Gladiator a hit means that it’s built to last without standing particularly tall. With apologies to Ridley Scott, it holds up fine without echoing into eternity.
As iconic as Ridley Scott's Gladiator is, a better film would exist beneath its legendary dialogue and battle scenes in the form of a sharper script.
The enduring success of Gladiator lies in many factors, one of which is Scott’s modern sensibility in his direction that appeals even to contemporary audiences.
Scott’s films lurch all over the place in terms in quality, but when the material rises to match his sheer movie-making suss, the results can be fabulous.
As a sword and sandal epic, it still holds the exciting pulse to this day with Russell Crowe's magnificent performance and its emotional story about the Roman gladiator who fights as a liberator against a corrupt emperor. [Full review in Spanish]
Russell Crowe takes ownership of his character and gives him an immeasurable truth and sadness. [Full review in Spanish]
The individual performances are great and the images are stunning, and -- perhaps most important -- Gladiator offers an escapist quality that makes its derivative flaws seem minor.
Gladiator is not a bad film at all; in fact, it's visually stunning, easily the most impressive work Scott has done since "Blade Runner." But it is apparent that reaction to this film is splitting along a fault line called "age."
This Ancient Roman swords-and-sandals epic is one of the last big-budget, grandiose Hollywood blockbusters to win Best Picture.
Great visual spectacle and first-rate entertainment... [Full review in Spanish]
When the dust finally settled, “Gladiator” pulled off a few minor miracles. It catapulted Crowe into super-stardom, removed any doubt that Scott could work within any particular genre with success, and took a dusty old genre and made it new again.
Gladiator benefits from a second half that is, given its focus on Maximus’ vengeance-fueled exploits, virtually overflowing with spellbinding interludes...
The film’s most important effect, if you will, is Crowe himself as the unabashed hero General Maximus, followed closely by Joaquin Phoenix as the Emperor Commodus. Gladiator is at heart their simple story.
It is an honorable movie, so are they all honorable movies. But that's not enough. It's not great. It's a disappointment. Caesar hates disappointment, so kill it swiftly and be done.