Gladiator
Movie Reviews | May 5th, 2000
Starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Oliver Reed, Connie Nielsen
Written By: David Franzoni, John Logan, William Nicholson
Directed By: Ridley Scott
I’ve been waiting for this movie to come out ever since I saw it’s first trailer at the Super Bowl.
And all I have to say is Wow, this was a great movie!! This movie is not one to miss this summer. Maximus (Russell Crowe) is a general who is a great warrior of Rome and is a true hero. One thing leads to another and he gets framed and becomes a slave. Some of the slaves who are strong enough become gladiators and eventually go to Rome to fight in the Coliseum.
With that said, i’m pretty sure you can figure out the story from the trailers and the commercials playing on TV every five minutes. From the opening scene, you got a sense of how much power and heroism Maximus has and the battle scene was great, especially Hans Zimmer’s musical score to this movie which i’m listening to now. The score helped the scene out a lot because it was just a great song for a fight scene. Like “‘Duel of the Fates” for Star Wars.
The battle had a very documentary look to it and I almost threw up. It was similar to Saving Private Ryan with the shaky battles, which adds the effect that it’s lifelike. Commodus, played by River Phoenix’s brother Joaquin was the evil son to the dying Caesar (soon to be Caesar) and was just a mean son of a bitch. He played the part as Caesar tremendously well. The late Oliver Reed was also in this movie as a slave owner and he died while in production of making this movie. I thought he did a great job as well for his last roll.
The fighting scenes were the best in the movie and blood went everywhere! great stuff. Tigers, Chariots, and big fat gladiators oh my! Another great feature to this film was the computer graphics. It was truly amazing to see them make the whole city of Rome! If this movie doesn’t make Russell Crowe a big star after this great performance than I will be very surprised and i’ll be surprised if any movies beat this at the box office this weekend or next. If you like Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan action drama movies than this is the movie to see this summer. Simply amazing!
Rating: R
Running Time: 155 minutes
Overall Rating: