ViewGuide

Created Mar 21, 2008 04:39AM PST • Edited Dec 23, 2019 02:02AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Hail the maximum sword and sandal movie. Gladiator tells a relatively unadorned story stupendously well. Its great star – Russell Crowe – fights above his weight class, delivering a superman performance while hewing to his characteristically understated readings.

   Highly watchable then and now, Ridley Scott’s grand production succeeds from the fascinating and compelling battle scenes at the start through the gallant martyr scene at the end.

   Delivering state of the art entertainment, this is as good as Hollywood gets.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Maximus Crowe has starred in lots of huge movies, none more mondo than Gladiator.

   Joaquin Phoenix – pre-Johnny Cash – plays the regal bad seed in murderously narcissistic and characteristically addled fashion. It’s damn near typecasting.

   Connie Nielson – suitably desirable and simmering – plays his incestuous fascination, kind of like the young Angelina Jolie.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    Snarling tigers springing from the Coliseum floor, fascinating glimpses of Rome in her glory, great lines from start¹ to end², this film has it all.

    ¹ “There is no one left to fight, sire.”

    ² “I have only one more life to take. Then it is done.”

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Perfect 5.0

13. Music Perfect 5.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.6

    Well executed violence and titillating sexuality make for lusty viewing.

17. Sex Titillating 2.5

18. Violence Brutal 3.4

19. Rudeness Salty 2.0

21. Reality

    Glib 1.5

    Impressively lifelike: the CircoReality – while historically fictitious – seems entirely plausible in a Hollywood sort-of-way, while Crowe’s Maximus BioReality is less than your normal James Bond imperviousness.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.9

23. Biological Glib 1.5

24. Physical Natural 1.0