So Monumental, You’ll Be Glued to Your Seat

The illustrious General Maximus falls victim to the intrigues of Emperor Commodus’s son and is forced to arrive in Rome disguised as a gladiator.

Ridley Scott’s filmography dictates that “Gladiator” should be seen as a lavishly paid ticket back to the profession after the disappointing failure of “G.I. Jane” (1997), where a furious Demi Moore was building a platoon of Navy SEALs. The circumstances for the comeback were most fitting: a budget of $100 million, a setting eighteen centuries ago, when the sky was bluer, people were more patriarchal, and wheat fields ripened into real gold. Ridley Scott had ample opportunity to apply his visual talents. With its postcard-perfect, polished beauty, “Gladiator” amazed everyone who saw it in theaters that year.

Visual Spectacle

Even today, even on a plasma screen, it amazes with its elaborately detailed backgrounds, rich costume finishes, and the Colosseum, powerfully restored in the style of Speer. These shots, dusted with ash, snow, or sand, these pink sunrises and golden sunsets…

Pink petals fall on heads, countless rags flutter in the wind, and vultures peck at warm meat. Five years later, in “Kingdom of Heaven,” the same ostentation would not look so impressive. After all, you can’t replace Russell Crowe with Orlando Bloom. The Australian, who won an Oscar for “Gladiator,” plays here not just a governor devoted to unfair superiors.

Maximus: A Prototype of the American Hero

If America, with its Senate and Capitol Hill, was a cast of the Roman Empire, then Maximus Crowe, standing in the Colosseum arena, was a prototype of the greatest American. An irresistible “Obama,” he defeated the villainous president and restored true democracy. The last time such a populist success was achieved was in the fifth part of “Rocky,” but Sly knocked out the Soviet empire.mpire