Gladiator DVD > Reviews > gladiators ready, contenders ready

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Good
Soundtrack	Outstanding

Advantages:	Absolutely Brilliant
Disadvantages:	None at all

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Picture the scenes, A 22 year old lad sat after a hard day at work, NTL's playing up again so he can't surf the net, suddenly he remembers that he has that pile of DVD's that he hasn't watched (yup theres more movie reviews to come) and takes a trundle over, theres an advert comes up on the Television for the movie Gladiator, thats it hes decided its about time he got round to watching that Gladiator DVD his parents lovingly bought him at Christmas. Well, that was me on Tuesday night of this week, sorry I know its hard to forget about DVD's and I didn't forget them honest its just I never had the time.

Anyway a quick background to the movie, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix & Connie Nielsen with added performances from the likes of the late great Oliver Reed and Derek Jacobi we have a tale about the Roman General who after being double-crossed out of being the Caeser of Rome becomes a slave who rises to be one of the greatest Gladiators of all time.

But I'm not going to delve too much into the storyline because if I did that then it'd spoil the movie for all you lovable ciaosers out there, so lets just say that Scott & Co should be patting themselves on the back right now because unlike a lot of the so-called 'classics' of our time this one really is good, the storyline moves smoothly along without a single blip and even though the movie is over 2 hours long it keeps you that entertained that it feels like you've only just sat down to watch it and its finished (much along the same ilk of going to a theme-park and looking at your watch for the first time about half an hour before closing time), so as I said that enough about the storyline you've got your basic outline here and I'm sure as I continue to type this I will make small references to the movie but I'm not going to spoil it, I'd never do that!

Right then we better get my only gripe with the movie out of the way now, just two words Joaquin Phoenix - he plays Commodus the Caeser of Rome and well he simply looks out of place here, he tries to seem believable by all means but it just doesn't come off, sorry Joaquin you tried you really did but this just wasn't the sort of part you should have taken, anyway that brings me onto one of the major parts of any movie - how the cast holds up and well apart from Mr.Phoenix its spotless it really is we'll start off with the major name of the film - Russell Crowe, playing our fallen hero Maximus his performance reaches out of the screen and grabs your attention not letting go of it for a total of 149 minutes, if ever one part was wrote for one person this is the one - Russell takes the character of Maximus and makes it his own, the emotion, the strength and the never-say-die attitude of Maximus its all there on screen and it makes for one of the best performances seen in a long time.

However of course Maximus isn't the only character here theres all the others and lets start off with Lucilla played by Connie Nielsen the sister of both Maximus and Commodus (it isn't spoiling the plot saying that - it becomes obvious in the opening stages of the mive), Once again we have a stunning performance as Connie takes off the concerned princess of the family character to a tee, taking the dialogue and making it believable which isn't always easy in a movie and it certainly seems that Connie definitely has a good future ahead of her if this movie is anything to go by.

Now we move onto the characters who don't have such a strong appearance in the movie - first off Proximo played by the late Oliver Reed who actually died during the making of this movie and he couldn't have left us a more fitting performance to remember him by, it just goes to show that his talents are truly on showcase here when he finally gets the Oscar nomination he so surely deserves, Proximo is the slave-trader who buys Maximus and turns him into the Gladiator that Rome begins to love, and again its a top notch performance in a top notch movie (sorry if I seem to be singing the praises of the cast too much but it really is that good!), starting off by playing the character as a money-hungry trader who doesn't really care about the fate of his Gladiators Reed changes brilliantly into the man who attempts to save Rome from all the corruption that hangs over its head.

There are other cast-members who put in good performances a'la Derek Jacobi but I'm not going to go too much into their performances because as good as they were they only had bit-parts compared to the four names mentioned above.

So now we get onto the actual settings, well of course most of it is played out in the background of Rome, except for the opening scenes where we see Maximus and his Army destroy the armies of Germania but rather than look out of place every background used has been created to perfection and they are all some of the best backgrounds I've seen in a long time and as we all know a lot of this is down to CGI, parts of the Collisseum, Rome in General the Grass blowing in the Wind in Maximus' dream sequences all of these have been created with the help of computers but to watch the movie you wouldn't notice as it all seems lifelike and beautifully created, In fact Rome never looked so good!

Finally the Musical score of the movie, well modern day music just isn't going to cut it in a movie set around aincent Rome now is it and of course Ridley Scott has noticed this and made a soundtrack of Classical music that plays over some of the more emotional sequences in the movie along with the thunderous sounds that accompany some of the fight sequences you notice that the musical team behind this movie knew what they where doing when they made this movie as it all seems to blend in smoothly with the action taking place on the screen.

Thats it then, I like Gladiator a lot, could you tell? well hopefully this will inspire you all to go out and watch the film and come back and agree with me - Joaquin Phoenix sucked didn't he?