Gladiator (2000)
Average Rating: 7/10
Reviews Counted: 165
Fresh: 127 | Rotten: 38
Ridley Scott and an excellent cast successfully convey the intensity of Roman gladitorial combat as well as the political intrigue brewing beneath.
Average Rating: 6.5/10
Critic Reviews: 41
Fresh: 29 | Rotten: 12
Ridley Scott and an excellent cast successfully convey the intensity of Roman gladitorial combat as well as the political intrigue brewing beneath.
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Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 32,502,985
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Movie Info
A man robbed of his name and his dignity strives to win them back, and gain the freedom of his people, in this epic historical drama from director Ridley Scott. In the year 180, the death of emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) throws the Roman Empire into chaos. Maximus (Russell Crowe) is one of the Roman army's most capable and trusted generals and a key advisor to the emperor. As Marcus' devious son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) ascends to the throne, Maximus is set to be executed. He
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Cast
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Russell Crowe
Maximus -
Joaquin Phoenix
Commodus -
Connie Nielsen
Lucilla -
Oliver Reed
Proximo -
Derek Jacobi
Gracchus -
Djimon Hounsou
Juba -
Richard Harris
Marcus Aurelius -
David Schofield
Falco -
John Shrapnel
Gaius -
Tomas Arana
Quintus -
Ralph Moeller
Hagen -
Spencer Treat Clark
Lucius -
David Hemmings
Cassius -
Sven Ole Thorsen
Titus -
Giorgio Cantarini
Maximus' Son -
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All Critics (165) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (135) | Rotten (38) | DVD (45)
The fusion of the ancient and the modern -- even to the point of some sly echoes of our own sports-mad society -- is seamless. Gladiator does indeed deliver the glory that was Rome, but it also clinically dissects the assumptions on which it was built.
Top CriticGladiator's combination of grim sanctimony and drenching, Dolby-ized dismemberings left me appalled.
Time for a little gladiatorial gore with your Milk Duds. Gladiator is here, and it's big, glorious and eminently dumb
Ultimately, Gladiator is an honorable and inoffensive spectacle with nothing extraordinary to recommend it.
Though the digital effects lack the weight and conviction of their equivalents in old Cecil B. De Mille movies, Ridley Scott's sword-and-sandal epic has some of the intensity of old Hollywood in terms of storytelling, spectacle, and violence.
The cast is strong (notably Nielsen as Commodus's vacillating sister, and the late Oliver Reed, unusually endearing as a gladiator owner), the pacing lively, and the sets, swordplay and Scud catapults impressive.
This is visceral film-making at its finest, painted on the grandest of canvases, and yet, one which maintains the finest eye for detail.
In the end, Gladiator is overdrawn and too insubstantial for its own good, just like the old days, but it satisfies as entertainment on a grand scale.
While Crowe's acting is certainly more subtle than most of the brouhaha around him, he has little chance to display the affecting humanity that's one of his chief assets.
Really excellent but really violent Oscar winner.
Russell Crowe is as believable a Spaniard here as Charlton Heston was a Mexican in "Touch of Evil." But director Ridley Scott took greater interest in entwining an empire's intrigue with its people's turmoil than emphasizing bread-and-circus brutality.
The remastering's absence of edge enhancement and more-intense colors are the most obvious differences. (Blu-ray Edition, Remastered)
...stirring action, good performances, and a plethora of visual delights.
The brutality has such a mythical grandeur that it occasionally resembles beauty.
Beefcake! Blood! Body slams! Boring! Boring? Well, not quite, but at 150 minutes, "Gladiator" isn't entirely the thrilling, action-packed Roman epic some fans of the genre were expecting.
Epic cinema is back.
Scott triumphantly transports us back to the Roman Empire circa 180 A.D. with a painter's eye for detail, a proven talent for manufacturing exotic realities (such as the future shock of Blade Runner) and a sweet tooth for utter spectacle.
Meaty and satisfying.
If a gladiator film doesn't work as spectacle or as bloodthirsty action, what's left? Drama? It's dead on that level, too...
It's only fitting that Ridley Scott's gargantuan Roman epic would be housed on two discs, and there's not a single millimeter of wasted space.
The film is good, at times grizzly, fun -- of epic proportions.
Audience Reviews for Gladiator
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Proximo: And the great whore will suckle us until we are fat and happy and can suckle no more.
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- Maximus: Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity.
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- Proximo: You should see the Colosseum Spaniard. Fifty-thousand Romans watching every movement of your sword, willing you to make that killer blow. The silence before you strike and the noise afterwards. It rises. It rises up like a storm. As if you were the thunder god himself.
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- Maximus: My name is Gladiator
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- Proximo: Gladiators... I salute you.
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- Juba: I will see you again, but not yet. Not yet.
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Best epic ever? | 39 days ago | 11 |
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Foreign Titles
- El gladiador (ES)
