Gladiator: Simple Yet Universally Epic

History isn't much more than a series of psychopathic, power-hungry individuals wielding tyrannical or ideally questionable power over a large group of people who think they could do better until given a chance, where they're too often quickly shown to be even worse than the tyrants they put so much sweat and blood into deposing. Rome is something of a historical anomaly. For the never-ending ways we praise its innovation, it remains a cruel empire run by cruel people who simply possessed better organizational skills than most. From widespread, no-rights slavery to horrific sexual ethics to the barbaric gladiator games, Rome was as coldhearted and morally corrupted an empire as has ever existed, and I find myself intrigued by the insistence of Ridley Scott's Gladiator on exposing the truth of its ugly underbelly that history has muddied with spectacle. Once a general of the feared Roman army, Maximus finds himself cruelly betrayed by those he serves and cast down into the world of gladiators through a calamitous twist of fate. No one is waiting for him at home anymore, and the only thing his enemies have left him is a single thought, rattling around in his mind like a furious bird in a cage: he will fight for vengeance's sake, something he will have in this life or the next.

A movie I haven't revisited in almost three years, beautiful visuals were there to greet me upon my arrival. Gladiator may be a thematically ugly story, but it looks anything but. John Mathieson's cinematography is brilliant, a naturalistic image that knows its limits and doesn't try to be more than it needs to be. It serves some production design that is some of the most breathtaking I've ever seen in any movie. The costuming of the Roman Legionaries is as thorough a spectacle as you'll ever see in a historical drama, the illusion of reality ridiculously complete. And just as men, women, and even children flocked to the Colosseum in days of old to watch the brutal spectacle, we find enough beauty in the carnage to do the same thing today, more or less. We merely think of it as more tasteful because we view it through the safety of a screen and from behind the shield of some semblance of fiction. 

Gladiator is a massive movie, and its scale utterly unprecedented. This is a double-edged sword. On one edge, it's tantalizingly epic, but on the other, it occasionally loses Maximus in its own massive spectacle. I learned plenty about him, namely that he's an ex-general with a universally tragic past. Still, I can't say I was getting to know him any better as a person, as he embodies a noble idea more than he does fulfill the role of a three-dimensional being, a simple character for a simple story. As for the other side of the character coin, a villainous and illegitimate heir to the Roman throne named Commodus, Gladiator fares better. 

Commodus, a scheming weasel of a human being, is more layered and engaging, a selfish and self-appointed new Emperor portrayed magnificently by Joaquin Phoenix. He's hateable in all the right ways, stiff competition for our titular gladiator. But even if Gladiator can't grasp its title character as well as I'd hoped, it remains undeniably, wholeheartedly loyal to him, and you may even feel like cheering him on. When Maximus won a fight, it felt like I had won. He's easy to root for because he is an incredibly just man who has fallen prey to a plight as universally unjust as any. I didn't realize I was invested in him until I was. Then all that remained was waiting for enough sand to be kicked up from the Colosseum floor, enough cold steel to be smashed together, and enough blood to be shed to buy Maximus's freedom - either through victory or through death. 

Gladiator is the simple story of a Roman general who falls as far as one possibly can so that he may crawl his way back up to the top with all the honor and goodwill in his heart, as less honorable men around him backstab and scheme with the hopes of stopping him before he can reveal them for the cowards they are. And because it's a relatively simple story filled with relatively simple characters, it runs into an artificial ceiling. But boy oh boy, is that ceiling ever ornate. There's a reason why Gladiator has become such a beloved film the world around, and I would be wrong to call it anything less than inspiring. It's a beautifully realized and wonderfully crafted vision of one of the most depraved societies in human history, and its sheer scale and attention to detail when bringing Ancient Rome to life are startlingly thorough. Gladiator looks like a million bucks, even if its budget was actually closer to 103 million dollars. But the real treat here is Russell Crowe's Maximus. He may not be the most complex character of all time, nor the wisest, flashiest, or most surprising. Still, he's impossible to dislike, because his sense of righteousness amidst a betrayal at the hands of a horrific empire is nothing short of inspiring. And so, we'll honor him for it.

Gladiator - 8/10

1 Corinthians 4:9-13