Gladiator: Ridley Scott and Rome

Ridley Scott brings the majesty of ancient Rome to life on the big screen with Gladiator. In this epic in the tradition of slave-to-hero story of such movies as Spartacus and Ben Hur, Scott paints a gripping portrait of a man driven to achieve revenge. Not since Ben Hur has Rome ever looked this good on screen.

Gladiator centers on Maximus (Russell Crowe), a general in the Roman army who is double-crossed and sentenced to death by a usurper to the throne. Escaping his execution, Maximus finds himself sold into slavery and made a gladiator to fight in the Roman provinces. After seeing the power of the winning the crowd, Maximus knows that in order to get his revenge on the scheming Emperor, he must become popular enough in the arena to make it to the ultimate arena. If he is able to fight in the Coliseum of Rome, he will be close enough to his goal to exact his revenge.

The most noticeable feature of Gladiator is its sheer size and majesty. The opening battle scene pitting a Roman legion against barbarian hordes is one that reveals the scale of the film to come. Scott's ability to bring powerful images across on the screen is uncanny, and the recreation of ancient Rome is nothing short of breathtaking. The Coliseum itself is monolithic. A towering stadium of death and carnage, it reverberates with the cheers of thousands of gleeful Romans. Gladiator is a taught melding of massive extras, miniatures, and computer-generated effects.

The performances are powerful. Crowe's depiction of the general reduced to slave-status is characterized by a quiet dignity and a smoldering rage against those who took his life and family from him. Connie Nielson plays a noblewoman with a keen sense of politics, and Derek Jacobi returns to the Roman period as a progressive senator. However, the scene stealer of the movie is Commodus, the usurping emperor who killed his own father to achieve the throne. Played with a Freudian complexity by Joaquin Phoenix, Commodus is simultaneously fascinating and loathsome. Raising the bar for film villains, Phoenix does an admirable job.