Gladiator commences with a lengthy, gruesome and astonishing battle sequence, set in the dark forests of Germania, where the old and ailing emperor, Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris), watches from a hilltop as his general, Maximus (Russell Crowe), savagely dispatches a bloodthirsty enemy horde. This scene is to Gladiator what the landings on Omaha Beach are to Saving Private Ryan, instantly kicking it into high gear, and for all of the other interesting bits of business that director Ridley Scott throws our way, the best parts of Gladiator turn out to be (not surprisingly) the mayhem. Thanks to the clearly wacko new emperor, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), who has an insatiable appetite for gladiatorial combat, there is a lot of mayhem.
Yes, there is a few parts that were not real, and clearly fake crowd scenes and some computer-generated tiger action, but there are also swords through the guts, and beheadings and lancings and other gladiatorial business, to the point that if Charlton Heston wanted to run his Ben-Hurmobile through the place for old times sake, nobody would object, if they even noticed.
It’s not all fighting, of course. There is some elegant, vaguely Shakespearean, Julius Caesar-style dialogue. People like Derek Jacobi, playing a Roman senator fearful of the public’s infatuation with Commodus, says things like, ’’Fear and wonder are a powerful combination. Rome is a mob. He will bring them death, and they will love him for it.’’ And then we get to watch more swords through the guts and more mayhem.
The underlying storyline offers all the appealing elements of a revenge drama by the Bard himself. Maximus, a Spaniard who worked his way up through the ranks to become a virtual son in the eyes of Marcus Aurelius, suffers grievously at the hands of Commodus, who snatches power and turns Maximus’s life into a living hell. Gladiator works inexorably toward the final showdown between the two men, stopping along the way to let grizzled veterans like Oliver Reed (in his final performance, playing a slave trader named Proximo) chew the scenery for a while.
Crowe, who is majestic to begin with as he rallies his men for the opening battle, grows into his role as if transported to 180 A.D. and then back again. You can almost smell his hate for Commodus over the multiplex popcorn. More than $100 million was spilled making this movie, and yet there was nothing extravagant about such an outlay. This is one of those cases where every penny is up on the screen, and
when two-and-a-half hours flashes by like a dying man’s life before his very eyes.