Gladiator

Action; R

2000

For my attention span, this movie is a little too long. So I broke it into 2 parts. And I have to say, the second part was a lot better. But I'll get more into that in the spoilers.

I didn't know that it won 5 Oscars until I finished the first part, and now I kind of get it. I mean, the CGI was pretty great, especially for 2000, and the costumes and sets were pretty good. Joaquin Phoenix was, I think, the best actor in this movie and carried his role REALLY well, which is hard to do for me because I (understandably) am not a big fan of characters like that.

And I get it, kind of. It had action, romance, revenge. From the description, it seemed like a good movie. The ending was good and the middle and beginning were also okay. But in all honesty I feel like the actual contents of the movie could've done a little bit more.

The problem is, is that I don't really know what. I'm far from a filmmaker so honestly I don't really know what I would change to make this a better movie.

Maybe the problem is that I just find the overall movie mid. Like, I feel like it didn't really have any substance. I was just kind of action, action, action. All of it was good, but it just felt kind of okay. Like, I understood everything but nothing really had a great effect on me, y'know?

Like, the whole emperor thing was bad, obviously, but I didn't really find myself caring much.

But one thing I will say, I guess, is that I did go to Rome and I went to the Coliseum with Rick Steves' audio tour and learned a lot about the history, and this movie is actually pretty accurate to the reality of ancient Rome. I liked that aspect a lot, and it did make me enjoy this movie more.

So yeah. This whole hard-to-care thing makes it a lowkey hard review to write so I guess I'll end it there. Good movie, but it needed a little more stuff.

SPOILERED REVIEW!

FILLER TEXT

I don't know about you guys, but I did not care one bit about the beginning of the movie. The "first half" I was talking about was just-before-gladiator stuff. I found it kind of tedious.

I don't know... I guess I just wanted to see some gladiator stuff. All the other stuff was mid.

Also how he stood up to emperor whatshisface was so tuff like yeah okay!!! Lowkey inspiring ngl...

But also I feel like the emperor would not actually pick a fight with Maximus. He might be stupid, but I don't think he would be that stupid. I feel like that part of the ending was mid just cuz it was unrealistic.

But yeah idk. It was just overall kind of okay. I'll probably think of other stuff later.

Oh yeah I have something. Why couldn't the sister of the emperor just like kill her brother. They were very close to each other for a lot of the movie and she didn't like him so like if I were her I would just like kill him???

And also bro that ending... it pmo in the moment but I feel like if it was a happier ending then I wouldn't have liked it either. Also like Maximus' buddy saying like "now we're both free" was like woah... And that lowkey got me ngl and so in conclusion I think that the ending was lowk fire!

Am I glad I watched it?
Yes

Would I watch it again?
Maybe?

Would I recommend it to a friend?
Also maybe

Favorite Character

Maximus!

Not gonna lie, he was kind of okay in the beginning. He was sort of tuff, kind of? But at the same time like not super. But then at the end (or like the second half) he was SUPER tuff and that made up for it!!!

Second place prolly goes to his African buddy, whatever his name was. He was super tuff but also like not really cuz they didn't really expand on his character much. Then third was prolly like the emperor's sister but she also kind of pmo so idk.

Yeah but Maximus was tuff! Ngl they didn't really expand on any of the other characters except for the emperor but obviously he's not gonna be my fave so yeah.