• Starring: Connie Nielsen, Joaquin Phoenix, Russell Crowe
  • Summary: Before Maximus (Crowe), the heroic Roman General, can honor the wishes of his dying emperor Marcus Aurelius (Harris) by assuming the emperor's role, the emperor's cruel and corrupt son Commodus (Phoenix) orders the execution of Maximus and his family. Escaping death, Maximus assumes the life of an anonymous gladiator, fighting his way back to the Roman Colosseum where he seeks revenge and a return to justice for Rome. Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 24 out of 37
  2. Negative: 1 out of 37
  1. It's a stunning Roman triumph.
  2. 60
    Filled with brilliant filmmaking and features outstanding performances, but it's neither profound enough nor pop enough to be great -- it's mournful, serious, beautiful and, finally, pointless.
  3. Friends, Washingtonians, countrymen, I come not to praise Gladiator but to bury it.

See all 37 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 79 out of 93
  2. Negative: 10 out of 93
  1. A brilliant motion picture that starts with blood and fire and ends with shockingly sad final settlement. Janty Yates made an excellent job with these costumes. There's only one thing that would've made this movie even better - if it had been in Latin. Expand
    • 4 of 4 users said yes
  2. Not sure I am really into these sandy classic epics from civilisations gone by. For sure, Crowe does a great job but by the end of the movie I was getting a little restless and I struggled to realise why it had gone for as long as it had.… Expand
    • 1 of 2 users said yes
  3. DaveCharlton
    3
    After seeing this film again, I have to say I was dumbfounded by its idiocy and triteness. After the breathtaking build up to the film's opening battle in Germania, we are given a hyper edited bloodbath, full of horrid jumpcuts that do the film no favour in hiding the fact that it was done on digital cameras and didn't interest me at all, especially when compared to the intensely visceral opening battle in Gangs Of New York, which put jittery slow-motion and jump-cuts to much more effective (and this is a huge understatement). From then on, there is not one sequence in the entire film that works. The whole thing is one big boring, pompous, ugly and altogether hollow mess, so much so that it makes even Troy look thoroughly impressive in comparison. At least that had an interesting story, was aware of its own over-the-top masculinity, wasn't full of laughabley hokey politics and banal dialogue and didn't put a predictable division between the tough, ordinary Stallone-eque good guy and the weird, effeminate villain. Scenes were Commodus (Jaquin Phoenix) lusts over his sister Lucille (Connie Neilson) are unintentionally funny and have about as much resonance with what little story Gladiator has as those of the senate ranting about what they're going to do with Rome. The Colloseum fights are were the film really hits rock bottom. These loathesomely shot pieces of ruthless carnage are gratuitously bloody and devoid of either artistic or entertainment value. I wasn't so much disgusted or shocked as I was bored. The films also serves an unfortunate epitaph for Oliver Reed who is given some of the films most tedious monologues to read out, you can almost feel his boredom. One of the worst Hollywood epic of the last ten years Expand
    • 1 of 11 users said yes

See all 93 User Reviews

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