Starring the Colosseum, and ably supported by Russell Crowe's battered
body, this movie does a surface scan of the bloody carnage created by
gladiatorial combat provided as entertainment for the Roman masses, and
the clandestine violence perpetrated by the young Caesar Commodus in his
desperation for power.
He's a good local lad Russell, Kiwi-born, so we claim him even though he
was raised in Australia. Every now and then his Aussie twang slipped
through, but for the most part his intensity was great enough to make up
for having to play a two dimensional character (Maximus). At the start
all he wants to do is get home. For the rest of the movie all he wants
to do is kill Commodus, and in between he ventures superficially into
spirituality and politics. I got the feeling those bits were an
afterthought, chucked in to pad the bits in between the fighting.
The fighting though, both in war and for sport, was chaotic and brutal,
and more than filled the rest of the movie in scale and intensity. Such
scenes were given these qualities by using techniques such as 'reality'
TV with jerky cameras, with the action alternating between
being shown with slowly segueing shots, and sudden rapid motion. All
killing seemed to be done as quickly and brutally as possible, giving a
real sense of the characters' adrenalin-pumped 'kill or be killed'
survival motivation. Those who survived had to be strong, and both
physically and mentally quick.
This is one of those rare American movies where they have managed to
make an action drama without having to ruin it with wisecracks and
hopelessly mismatched genres. This is thanks to Director Ridley Scott,
most well known for Blade Runner, and you can most clearly see
his
mark in the scenes in the palace of Commodus which are infused with a
sense
of ominous gloom.
This was the perfect environment for the machinations and paranoia of
Commodus. This part was extremely well cast and portrayed by Joaquin
Phoenix (River's brother). He was sensitive and sullen, but also
ambitious and cunning. Deeply troubled by his feelings of low (or no)
self worth, he sought the love of the Roman people and gave them 164
days of games to help them get over the death of his father Emperor
Marcus Aurelius.
This was one example of the many ironies in this story, for his father
had wanted the empire to be ruled by the democratically elected senate,
and was more interested in the future health and well being of the Roman
people than in fighting. Another irony is that the philosophical and
introspective Aurelius had spent 16 of his 20 years as emperor fighting
to expand the empire.
The bottom line with this movie is that it is an action movie. It is
thin on character development and has a one-way ride plot. In fact the
only character development that occurred seemed somewhat inexplicable to
me. This was of Lucilla, sister of Commodus. The first couple of times
we
meet her she seems to be a scheming, untrustworthy person willing to try
any ploy to attract the attention of Maximus. Although there were hints
at
a previous unsuccessful relationship between them, this was never given
any
more depth, and provided the flimsiest of reasons for her to become the
totally trustworthy person who later risked both her own life and that
of
her son to help him wrest control of Rome from her brother.
But who cares? Just as the citizens of Rome were happy to be distracted
from politics and their every day concerns by mindless entertainment in
the form of real life bloody battles, so too was I (and presumably most
others in the theatre) happy to have escaped reality for three hours to
watch the same thing being provided for my own entertainment.
Website - www.gladiator-thefilm.com
