Gladiator

Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan

It's a stunning Roman triumph.

Film.com Ted Fry

It's that very rare feeling that you're settling into a movie whose individual elements are so finely attuned they fuse into a singular construct of pure entertainment.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It lives up to the hype. Gladiator has its creaky moments, but it delivers a particular kind of visceral historical spectacle that movie audiences haven't seen in decades.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

What matters for today's hero is the good fight, and Gladiator KOs us with a doozy.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Glorious, a colossus of rousing action and ferocious fun.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

If there's a soft spot in your heart for the sword-&-sandal epic -- and from the star rating above, I think you can guess where I stand -- then you'll swoon with giddy delight over Gladiator.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

An exhilarating, sweeping epic that begs to be seen on the largest possible screen.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Has the kind of super-cinematic qualities and bravura acting that make up for almost anything.

Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark

Combining a seething physicality with enough weary nobility and tightly checked rage for a dozen wronged heroes, (Crowe) provides the movie's vital center of gravity without looming over his co-stars.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

One extended guilty pleasure.

Time Richard Corliss

Quite a good movie--a big, fat, rousing, intelligent, daring, retro, many-adjective-requiring entertainment.

Variety Todd McCarthy

John Mathieson's widescreen cinematography is magnificent, and the pacing across 2½ hours is well modulated.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

As formulaic, but occasionally outré multiplex-bound behemoths go, Gladiator is a foaming beast.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

At 2 1/2 hours, Gladiator is a long ride, but it doesn't drag.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Lacks emotional depth and sweep -- but the movie still delivers the type of rousing, large-scale adventure that marked the best films of its kind

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Frequently gory, often talky, almost always watchable, never quite thrilling, Gladiator is a cold and big film that mixes solid acting with cheesy digital effects and sweaty action with stultifying chatter.

Newsweek Andrea C. Basora

The fight scenes are dynamic, intricately choreographed, and downright exciting.

Film.com Robert Horton

The heroism and the tigers and the epic grandeur all leave behind the flavor of cynicism.

TNT RoughCut J. Rentilly

What elevates Gladiator to the near-greatness it occasionally achieves is the performance of Russell Crowe as Maximus.

Film.com Sean Means

The warm humanizing element in all the cool stuff is Crowe.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Brawny, he-man spectacle combined with a surprisingly solid story and buttressed by excellent performances.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

It ends with the corniest convention of all: an absurd mano-a-mano between good and evil.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Instead of the heat of humanity, what lingers on in the mind is the cool of the computerized effects.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

It epitomizes the kind of high-profile bloodshed we now expect to herald the hazy, lazy, blockbuster-fixated days of summer.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Like an aging athlete who knows how to husband strength and camouflage weaknesses, it makes the most of what it does well and hopes you won't notice its limitations.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The script by producer David Franzoni, John Logan, and William Nicholson is serviceable but not exactly inspired.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

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.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

The digital animation is far more evident here than in "The Phantom Menace."

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Grandiose and silly.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Scott's filmmaking is as blunt and bullying as the mayhem it portrays.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It employs depression as a substitute for personality, and believes that if the characters are bitter and morose enough, we won't notice how dull they are.

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

Well, it's better than "The Phantom Menace."

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's a loud, obnoxious, and pleasant-enough entertainment, but hardly the soaring tale of one man's struggle that it was so clearly envisioned to be.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

The soul of Gladiator is made sluggish by a maddening lack of suspense.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

For all its grandeur, Gladiator is a canned experience, a film that flails around awkwardly trying to find a reason to exist, or at least a compelling story to tell.

Slate David Edelstein

Gladiator's combination of grim sanctimony and drenching, Dolby-ized dismemberings left me appalled.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Friends, Washingtonians, countrymen, I come not to praise Gladiator but to bury it.