Finally watched Gladiator. I would put it in a group with Titus, The Patriot, and Braveheart, in that all have sweepy, beautiful, epic cinematography and are basically revenge tales with one-man wrecking crews after those who have wronged their families. Among the lot, Gladiator is superior to the first two and far inferior to Braveheart.
I think other people have criticized Ridley Scott but can't remember for what. What occurred to me is that this film has no sense of "slice of life." That is, you get the feel that what you see is everything--much like with a stage play, except on a grand scale. I never thought for a moment that Rome had anything going on or about it except what we actually saw framed by the camera; thus it consisted chiefly of the arena and the palace. An old Gahan Wilson cartoon showed the moon as actually having just one side and the dark side of the moon being nothing but a metal support frame. That's how this film felt.
Similarly, none of the characters felt as though they had lives except what we saw. They were all just mechanisms to advance the plot like the little figurines that Maximus kept of his family (another Patriot echo).
Its biggest strength is that Russell Crowe looks the part, but as far as Academy Awards, I preferred the job he did in LA Confidential, and even Joaquin Phoenix's performance in this film. (Not knocking Crowe, just saying it wasn't Oscar-worthy.)
The story was tripe, pure and simple. I can't think of a single twist or interesting bit in it, or surprising line of dialogue, whereas it had many gaps in logic and cliche after cliche. It was worth watching for the look and epic sweep and if you like seeing guys bust each other up, but not really memorable IMO.
