Gladiator

i liked this movie but it didnt think it halfway deserved best picture, Traffic and /CTHD deserived it twice as much

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"Who comes at 12:00 on a Sunday night to rent Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid?"
-Hollywood Video rental guy to me

I've already criticized both of those things, and I'll stand by my criticisms until the day I die.

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**** the Lakers!

That day may come sooner than you think if you keep talking smack about "Gladiator." Anyway, Stanley Kubrick makes boring movies that he thinks are deep, when they're really just friggin' weird...so it's all good.

Oh...I see why you were laughing now Steve N.Gladiator......LOL...oscar?!Ha!

I'm on board with the poster who said the movie was overrated...Crowe was good, but he was better in The Insider. The best thing about Gladiator was Joaquin Phoenix...that was an amazing performance.

Stop reviving ancient threads!!! There are plenty of other places to talk about Gladiator

i have to say joaquin pheonix was absolutely mesmerizing here , and it feels like u need to punch him over and over because of his bad practices, such a wonderful performance

I also think Gladiator is overrated and saw it twice now. The story is just very predictable and nothing really grabs me about it. I knew how it was going to end, and I didn't really buy into the fact that this Gladiator could gain that much power, when the Emperor could kill him at any moment it seemed. Not saying that it's not do-able, I just wasn't sold on it, the way they did it.

Also, does anyone notice how the movie has a very plot to The Running Man? It's almost like they literally got the idea from that movie.

People were and to certain extent still are in hunting gathering caveman mindset. So the most raw powerful person usually gains public support. Its similar to presidential debate, the most smart public speaker wins the day.

Everyone knew that Pheonix inherited his power and after revealing his identity, it became very clear to everyone in Rome that this gladiator was an army general who is also an expert warrior in arena and in war.

So all these circumstances were ripe for an uprising in roman empire. So, I can see why pheonix had to make it look like he could beat crowe in a public one-one fight. Otherwise everyone would see him as a weak king. Those kind of things are not good for crown in long run.

It's a compressed story that has some elements of actual history, but Gladiator treads very lightly on what a twisted and violent person Commodus really was. Phoenix seriously underplays that and treats him like a vulnerable child when he was really more of a deranged lunatic.

The actual Commodus fought in the arena a number of times, much to the dismay of the ruling class who considered that to be for slaves, not rulers. He also "fought" animals, dispatched a bunch of hobbled lions, elephants and giraffes and once beheaded an ostrich and paraded around with its head. Suffice to say, he's low on the list for animal rights people. One thing they got right was that Commodus, as the son of Marcus Aurelius, was a serious disappointment. Marcus marks the high point of the empire, Commodus the beginning of the decline.

The movie doesn't dwell very much on the politics or history of the guy, but is really pretty good on the material details of the games, costumes, etc. A movie that displays his depravity would have to run about 8 hours and, for a final insult, would have to portray him being strangled in the bathtub by a "wrestling partner" named Narcissus rather than killed in the arena. The movie was about as good as it could be for its run time, but, as much as I kinda liked Phoenix's portrayal, the real guy was really far, far weirder. He also had a thick beard. I gave it a bit of a break because there aren't many good Roman movies in recent years, but it's a generous view of a character who doesn't deserve generosity.

This is very simple: Gladiator is a great movie. End of thread.

Oh okay, but Maximus didn't really do anything to tell the people, he was a general that has been framed did he? Did the people know this?

In real Rome, maybe, but in the fictional world of Gladiator, there wasn't plot time for an appeal to any sort of legalisms.

Oh okay, well I thought that if all of a sudden Maximus was killed, people would think that Commodus was even more powerful as emperor and that you don't want to mess with him or challenge him.

I thought it was a decent movie, visually terrific, but really, they should have picked a different name for an emperor or given Phoenix a different script. Commodus is well known in history and was seriously deranged with lots of well documented forms of crazy behavior. Giving THAT name to the low-key performance of Phoenix just didn't make sense. It would have been a great role for that other scenery-chewing actor, Jay Robinson, who played the bloody, cruel Caligula in a couple of biblical movies in the 1950's, The Robe and Demetrius and the Gladiator.

A fair point. You obviously know your Roman history. However 99% of people would have never even heard of Commodus let alone the details of his reign and personality. The filmmakers are making a movie, not a documentary. I'll happily forgive a little historical inaccuracy in a great film like this.

Quite true. Fans of ancient Roman stories like me don't get many chances to critique script writer's choice of despots. As long as I'm listing historical grievances, I have to also mention that Marcus Aurelius died from natural causes and was not murdered by Commodus.

It all would go down easier for me if they had chosen some less well known characters but, for sure, movie audiences generally are a little stale on their list of 2nd century emperors.

I have to admit I had never heard of Commodus before I saw the film, however I've read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and thought it was excellent and inspiring.

Gladiator is one of my favorite films and soundtracks. Im a fan of historical movies and Ridley Scott is amazing director. Richard Harris is beyond words as an actor. I love the feel of the movie. Not so much of a Russell Crowe fan and Joaquin Phoenix is very good at portraying his characters. I know many who bash but hey, to each their own.

This got me to re-watch Gladiator. I still have the same reservations about the made-up history of the characters, but, like before, the look, props, costumes and gritty reality of the movie is truly amazing. The opening sequence, the battle against the Germani during Marcus' Marcomannic Wars, is truly amazing, as is the look of the rest of the movie.

I still, however, don't get why, with so much effort put into the look, why they portrayed Commodus as such an insecure, weak character when he was really a macho, demented psychopath, who thought it to be entertaining to murder hobbled elephants and tigers in the arena. It's a minor point, but Marcus was not nearly as old and frail as in the movie, although he was as dispirited. Marcus was more of a philosopher and author and there's nothing to suggest that Marcus intended to appoint a general as his successor rather than Commodus. He could have done that at any time by adopting a successor as several emperors actually did. We won't ever know what he thought about Commodus who seemed manifestly unfit right from day one.

There's no exact analog to Maximus (Latin for the big man), but he's a good analog to the world weary generals who'd seen enough death to just want to go home. The Romans were mortally afraid of the huge Germani (said to be giants) but their superior tactics and weaponry generally prevailed against the barbarian skirmishers, as in the opening sequence. The movie, in spite of its flaws, is the best recent movie about the empire, even though it completely misses the character of Commodus, a big deal considering his stature as a character in the story. That's why I thought that they should have just picked an unknown emperor, but I guess most viewers wouldn't really care.

It has some distinct parallels taken from an 1831 stage play called The Gladiator, which introduced us to Spartacus, the character from the novel and the 1950's movie. Writers of both Spartacus and Gladiator acknowledged a connection to the old stage play, which starred a Russel Crowe-like actor, Edwin Forrest.