How has Ridley Scott pulled the veil over everyone's eyes? The camera-work in the first battle scene is disorienting and intentionally blurry to avoid showing anything in detail. The dialogue, from start to finish, is unrealistic- both on a human level and a Roman level. If you want to incorporate historical figures into a fictionalized account, treat them as historical figures, not perversions of historical figures with the same names. Marcus Aurelius was not a 2000 year-too-early Thomas Jefferson. Whatever Hellenistic notions of democracy the Greeks held to, the Romans repudiated until the disintegration of their empire. I laughed awkwardly (to mask my offense and disbelief) when Aurelius lets his daughter know what an impressive "Caesar she would have made had she been born a man." What utter nonsense! Furthermore, the character of Commodus is not so much miscast as it is botched in the person of Joaquin Phoenix. Russell Crowe acquits himself nicely in his performance as Maximus, but is his story of revenge really that sympathetic? The computer generated Rome is impressive, but not even on a par with the Rome of Julie Taymor's recent "Titus." And what is this odd, recurring cornball shot of Maximus parallel to the ground as the grass moves under him? The production value of Gladiator is high (at times), but someone should've hired a proofreader and BS detector.
