Welcome, summer; "Gladiator" is here.
The solstice may be a month away yet, but to moviegoers, the season begins when a film arrives brandishing bombast and budget, immediately dwarfing its competition, making us ask what exactly we were spending our money on for the past three months.
Brains are a bonus in this sort of endeavor, and "Gladiator" reasonably raised expectations that it would have as many smarts as swords, with a real actor, Russell Crowe, in the lead, and a true visionary, Ridley Scott ("Blade Runner," "Thelma & Louise"), behind the camera.
So it is with some disappointment that I bring you the report from inside the arena: "Gladiator" is a summer movie through and through, a bloody but superficial spectacle built on a foundation of dollars, not ideas. Overlong and underwritten, it has little to get excited about that doesn't involve contusions, lacerations or avulsions.
Crowe plays Maximus, a distinguished Roman general who, as the film opens, is trampling the last vestiges of unconquered Germania for the noble Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris), in what, sadly, turns out to be the film's most stirring action sequence.
With the battle safely over, Marcus' amoral son, Commodus, arrives (Joaquin Phoenix, his sunken eyes looking like they might fall back inside his skull at any moment). Angered that Marcus is planning to pass the empire along to his trusted general, Commodus smothers his already dying father. And lest the competition get too stiff, Commodus orders the execution of Maximus and his family.
Maximus escapes; his wife and son do not. Taken as a slave, sold as a gladiator, Maximus soon proves his mettle in the arena, fighting his way to the Colosseum in Rome and the inevitable showdown with the depraved emperor.
This is by-the numbers storytelling, and the numbers are these: one, two and three. That's the extent of the plot complications, an average of a little better than one per hour. After all, there's not much a shackled gladiator can do other than try to limber up for the next spectacle of death. And what happens in between the bouts is perfunctory and dramatically flat.
It's not surprising that "Gladiator" invokes memories of a greater movie, but the straightforward story doesn't recall "Ben-Hur" or "Spartacus" as much as "Rob Roy." The tale of the Scottish revolutionary avenging the rape of his wife was melodrama with meat on its bones, a stronger narrative, a better villain and an infinitely superior climactic swordfight, one in which the outcome was truly in doubt.
But there is much to enjoy in the swordfights that get Maximus to his inevitable end. Every time he survives a bout, it's a triumph of the will; the life expectancy for gladiators was infinitesimal. Scott's hyperactive camera evokes the insanity of the Romans' idea of "entertainment," the sense that any body part could be sliced or punctured at any second. And while "Gladiator'"s audience is implicated for enjoying the violence is well, Scott wisely sticks to stylized bloodletting. Any prolonged physical agony takes place offscreen.
Maximus's emotional distress, however, is painfully clear; the honorable empire for which he was happy to shed blood as a general has been turned upside down. Crowe has moments of anguish and vulnerability that recall his performance as the tormented whistle-blower Dr. Jeffrey Wigand in "The Insider." But he's also a hero through and through, and even the dullest lines roll off his tongue with inherent majesty.
Others do not fare so well: Phoenix's Commodus is clearly evil but whiny and not particularly smart. Fear is his motivator, and the people's love is his goal; neither makes for inventive villainy. It's disturbing enough that he wants to bed his sister (Connie Nielsen), but the scenes between them in their mood-lit palace play like a period soap opera.
And then there's the problem of Oliver Reed. This one wasn't Scott's fault: Reed, the barrel-chested Brit as famous for his exploits at the pubs as his performances, died midway through the shoot. His role as Proximo, the Don King of the gladiator world, had to be scaled back severely, and if his appearances later in the film seem shorter than they should be, it's because Scott was using whatever footage he had.
Even ignoring Reed, "Gladiator" isn't seamless. Computers have allowed Scott to recreate ancient Rome any way he likes, but he seems unsure as to how to work the effects into the film without betraying their artifice. You're supposed to be awestruck at seeing ancient Rome on the screen, but you might as well be reading the operations manual for Windows NT.
Still, Scott knows a powerful image when he shoots one, and occasionally he works "Gladiator" into an impressive pitch, accompanied by the glorious score of Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard. It's as physically imposing a film as its title character, and after all, in the summer, size does matter.
Grade: B-
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