Running Time: 155 minutes

Scene One: Opens with huge set piece. This is not present day; this is signified by monochrome photography and smoke machines. Many close-ups and fast cutting without any sense of geography (ie. directed by one of the Scott Brothers). Cue skip-frame photography and telegraph-all-emotions kitschy score so that it now resembles a music video.

The rest of the film consists of: obligatory dialogue scene, then gladiator action scene, then obligatory dialogue scene, then gladiator action scene, etc, etc...until the two head honchos finally do battle with each other. The dialogue scenes are boring, obvious, inconsequential, completely lacking in crackling dialogue or one-liners, humourless, useless, ham-fisted and totally devoid of genuine emotion (as opposed to sentimentality, of which there is plenty). Because the plot is absolutely obvious and foreshadowed from scene one, you can go to sleep during any of these scenes and have no trouble playing join-the-dots, fill-in-the blanks scriptwriting-by-committee.

Snore...um, hmmm...what's happening? oh, another fight scene! Cool! You too can cheer and applaud as people get their heads chopped off and are gored in multiple ways! If you see it in a cinema which features stadium seating, you too can recreate what it must have been like sitting in that colloseum. Isn't it amazing how far we've evolved? People used to go to the colloseum to cheer on brutality for entertainment value. Whereas now, people go to cheer on a movie about people cheering on brutality for entertainment value. My, how things have changed since those medieval times. Are we having fun yet? And a great big round of applause goes to Russell Crowe for beheading that man in the arena. Bravo!

Sometimes, the gladiator will have visions about his past, only they closely resemble River Phoenix's visions from Gus Van Sant's 'My Own Private Idaho'. Oh, well, it's the thought that counts, even if they're not your own.

Once the villian is defeated, do we roll credits? God no! First, we must telegraph the ending by at least 10 minutes with a few tearful scenes and some more sentimentality. This is an important and epic picture...it's epic and it's important. You must never forget that. Now that you have that down, we can finally roll credits. Cue house lights, curtains, ring up cash register so that Dreamworks/Universal stockholders can skim the till. The End.
 

I have a complete 180 degree take on Michael's review. This is a great film which signals the return to form of a great director. Even Russel Crowe is good and Hans Zimmer's score makes me want to buy the soundtrack right away (or at least download an MP3 )

The fight/battle scenes a very well staged and edited and though it is very violent, we are spared prolonged shots after the fact.

The CGI in the film is very good and looks real. It is also used in appropriate places, unlike that slop Star Wars.

And judging by our first day, I'd be getting an extra box office person or two 'cos you're gonna need them. A Thursday night and we topped the 760 patron mark.

All who've seen it seem to like it.

It's a story about a Gladiator, Michael. Not Bambi.

PS: Speaking of Star Wars, did anyone see Letterman the other night? You know how he puts products on his desk with new and improved marketing techniques? Well, he had the video for Phantom Menace and his had a sticker on the front cover which said...'Sucks even worse than you remember!'
Had a good laugh at that one.
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"It's not the years honey, it's the mileage".
Indiana Jones.
 

I recommend The Gladiator.

I think that perhaps Micheal was disappointed because it was violent. At least that is what it seems like, comparing movie audiences in stadium seating theatres to crowds in Rome. Violence will always be a part of human nature, no matter what. I will admit that watching such violence, when it is filmed well, is fun and exciting. It's better to watch it than to do it in real life (two completely different things). But I am hardly barbaric for thinking so. Like I said, it's human nature. And it's a HUGE part of history, so films are definitely going to be made with violence. History is cool. It is, by far, the best teacher.
 

Anyway, in reference to Gladiator, all I could think of during this flick was a line which I will now quote:
"Horrible, deploric violence is ok...so long as there isn't any naughty words!" -Sheila Broflowski from SouthPark

I think Michael summed up the movie for me. I was genuinely bored through most of the dialogue scenes. I didn't much care who lived or who died. At least the violence was enough to keep me in my seat. Sad, isn't it?

 

Yoda: "Embrace the crowd you shall"

Good movie none the less.
 

Otherwise it was great! Great CGI, flawlessly mixed with the live action. Great cast, beautiful score (same guy that did thin red line by the way!!) The dialogue wasn't slow, its juat that the Gladiator stuff was VERY outweighed and intense. The dialogue was good though, very well photographed, good to look at. I loved the flashbacks/ heaven shots , very sureal, reminded me of The Messanger in parts.

The only time I really felt involved in the movie at all was during the two Colosseum scenes where Maximus takes the swords out of his opponent’s chest and cleaves the man’s head off and when one of the archers gets sliced in half by the protruding blade affixed to one of the chariot wheels. In fact I was so involved I screamed aloud in delight (I was alone of course). And I guess that goes to show I’m no better than the people of Rome in those days of bread and circus. And maybe realizing that the violence was entertaining to people like me was the point Ridley was trying to make. I mean the only real point to the movie (besides Maximus trying to get his revenge of course) was to show the precarious struggle by the Emperor and the Senate to gain favor of the people that must be kept entertained (lest they tear themselves apart) by the Gladiators like Maximus who they all love and praise for his violence. And we cheer (or are supposed to cheer) along with them. The only difference though is we know the people killed in the movie are still alive in real life.

I have a pretty good idea why they didn’t depict the tradition of feeding Christians to the lions while playing the hydraulos (an instrument so impressive, it could be heard a mile away). But where were the Roman bath house locales that could have been used during dialogue scenes between or among the politicians? And I didn’t see any handshakes in the traditional Roman manner (grasping each others forearm right above the wrist). I kept expecting Oliver Reed’s character Proximo to bite the dust any moment since he died early in the film’s production, so if they ever decided to go with CGI-ing his face like they proposed to do after he died, they did a hell of a job, and he even sounds like Oliver all through the film. Of course, I’m sure they just cut out some scenes and reworked the storyline instead, but at any rate it’s a shame he died because of all the performances in the movie, his was the best. Of course Russell Crowe did a good job too (he’s just awesome in anything he does), but I was drawn away from the seriousness of the movie for a brief moment when I first discovered his name to be Maximus and thought of the name Naughtus Maximus in Monty’s Python’s Life of Brian. That started a chain reaction in my mind that led to the Biggus Dickus scene, and I had to use all my concentration to block it out and focus on the movie at hand. Several laughs escaped though.

The music was excellent, although I think that a few cues were a little inappropriate to the content of the film. Particularly the end title music with Lisa Gerrard’s vocals accompanying the last of the movie. And that’s strange because it’s my favorite track in the score. It just feels a little out of whack in the movie. More British than Roman (damn that Ridley). There was a cue to the Gladiators first filing out of the tunnel onto the Colosseum stage that had elements of Gustav Hoist’s classical piece Mars- The Bringer of War, and that’s very apropos to that scene. But that final confrontation between Crowe and Phoenix was pretty stupid. Kind of reminded me a bit of the duel in Rob Roy. I think Tyler’s right about a battle between a Gladiator and a Caesar just not happening. And I didn’t even cheer or feel satisfied when Phoenix died and Crowe got his revenge which is the whole damn driving force behind the story. This movie would have been better if Ridley Scott had no affiliation with it whatsoever. Can’t wait to see what that man screws up next. The movie, overall, wasn't that bad, but it could have been a hell of a lot better. Mel Gibson should have directed Gladiator. After all, it’s basically a Roman Braveheart. Surely, he could have made the movie’s two and a half hours more interesting. And the battle scenes would have been more lucid.

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The man with the magic hands.

BTW, The Critereon DVD of Life of Brian is Awesome, I had to chuckle a little bit too, "Do you have a pwobwem....with my fwend...Biggus....Dickus???

Anyway, I liked this better than U-Piece of shit-571. Russel Crowe is a badass Muthus Fuckus.
 

Just had to throw in that U-571 remark in, didn't you?

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The man with the magic hands.

And I did some research, the Caesar Commudus did actually die in a gladiator fight to the general of the northern armies but Gladiator was way out of context still. Entertaining however.

Going gangbusters here at the box office...
and Joe, Russel is here in Sydney. If there's someone else over there claiming to be Russel Crowe and showing your movies and leaving the toilet seat up, you've got an imposter on your hands.

In fact, Russel is here now moving IMAX prints around for me and says I have a real job and that acting is cushy and just for namby pambys...

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"It's not the years honey, it's the mileage".
Indiana Jones.
 

Fundamentally, "Gladiator" has two problems; and two fallacies that are becoming more and more common in movies today, but which aggravate me nonetheless... (this probably has more to do with me getting old and crotchety, I guess):

(1) They take too long to tell the story.
Everybody today thinks their movie is more important than any other, and the director's self-indulgence ultimately translates into running times well over 120 minutes.

(2) Action scenes are cut too #$%@# fast, and with unnecessary coverage!
This is an outgrowth of the MTV generation. Individual shots aren't on the screen long enough to register, and you end-up getting left behind in a smathering of musical cues and sound effects. You have to wait until after the characters are picking up the pieces of an altercation to discover, by deduction, what has transpired. (As an example of how ridiculous this technique is getting... in another movie of this type, I counted FIVE cuts, in a half-second period, to show a character doing something as simple as turning around!)

An additional problem which relates to the latter, is all the action scenes were shot with strobe lighting, which prevents quick movements from blurring. This added to the confusion arising from the quick cuts.

Not to offend anyone, heaven forbid, this is only my opinion. And you know what they say in the military about opinions...

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Better Projection Pays!
 

God I hope he doesn't have a recurring theme like he did with the face wiping in Face/Off! That was the corniest thing I've ever seen in a movie.
 

Of course it is great if its in a propoganda machine like Saving Private Ryan. Spewberg can cut frames and give strobing to the opening scenes of SPR but if its done by anyone else its just not needed???

and of course, "its too long" the whole audience is just crying out FEED ME, but if a director tries to involve dialogue and dramatic structure to an "action flic" its just a piece of garbage???
 

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The man with the magic hands.

No, I don't really like my movie rollercoaster rides slow. I would like to be able to SEE them though, to experience it to the fullest.

If unnecessary cuts and coverage are required to pull off an action scene, then the scene is either lacking in substance, execution, or the director and/or editor is woefully inept. Skillful editing builds excitement and anticipation, and then delivers a release. There has to be a solid PACE. A rhythm. Today's filmmakers seem to have lost sight of that (or else they didn't know it to begin with). I'm only getting the build-up and then they're losing me (and a lot of other people) on the delivery. The result is a great deal of frustration for the viewer.

By and large, all this quick-swish-pan-jump-cut stuff for its own sake came with MTV. This is a fact, it's not a "dis" to young people. And MTV was around a long time before rappers became popular. Since music videos are primarily intended to sell the artist, the only way that a video can stand out is to draw attention to itself. The one that's the quickest, flashiest, loudest, most-obnoxious, or has the newest special effect trick wins. It's eye candy.

"MTV style" filmmaking fails to impress me because it becomes a means to an end. Fundamentally, it has an amateurish quality about it--not necessarily photographically, but one which is telegraphed through infractions of basic editing and storytelling conventions.

I'm sorry but this style is over my head, believe me I would love to be able to catch these new films, but I physically CANNOT FOLLOW THE ACTION!

I think Dwayne pinpointed it, in that there are too many jump cuts. I believe the 180 degree rule has been tossed aside as well. The viewer's eye ends-up getting too many miscues and the result is merely a jumble, which LESSENS a scene's impact, instead of reinforcing it (read FILM EDITING by Karel Reis, this is the reference work on the subject, and it will underscore for you the mistakes these filmmakers are making in logic, pacing and flow).

Regardless of style, there has to be a solid underlying foundation upon which all else is built.

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Better Projection Pays!

I've read it, I've also read literature by Eisenstein, Godard, and Lang regarding film editing technique, and every film professor will teach the 180 degrees rule, but they will also teach that film editing is a way to manipulate the audience, and however it is edited to achieve the impact the director wants is an effective means of editing. This stated, jump cuts (whether its your opinion that they are excessive) and quick editing enhances the footage and impact of a scene. Its just a different style, and many people like myself got what the director was trying to do. Other people like yourself didn't like it, and in turn critisize it.
I think this style of editing is great, and for you to say that the editor doesn't "get it" is just saying that new and innovative ways of making a movie should be tossed asside, and that every movie should be the same classical style of editing we've been seeing since the 20's.

Great edited movie you should see-> The Limey
 

Ridley Scott, on the other hand, can barely keep the beat.

Both directors may choose to cut quickly, but therein lies the difference.
 

Then you've missed the point. Just because a "professor" teaches a rule doesn't mean the students will follow it. Reading and understanding are two different things.

>>however it is edited to achieve the impact the director wants is an effective means of editing. <<

Wrong. This is saying that anything goes. You've missed the point of my entire post above. Impact relates to emotional involvement; if an audience can't follow a film, they won't be involved. Simply because a director wants something a certain way does NOT translate into effective. Style and SUBSTANCE are not synonymous. If I made a movie and decided that "my style" was to tell the story completely out of sequence (for example, in shooting order), according to your line of reasoning this would be okay; and if you didn't understand the finished film, it would be your own fault because you're being too old fashioned.

No. Impact is achieved by skillful use of a pallet of techniques (with emphasis on the word skillful), tempered with solid storytelling principles. In other words, you don't use or invent a technique simply because you can, or because it's the flavor of the day; it has to have a purpose in relating your story. Confusion isn't an effective means of communicating anything other than confusion.

>>is just saying that new and innovative ways of making a movie should be tossed asside, and that every movie should be the same classical style of editing we've been seeing since the 20's. <<

I'm not against innovation if it helps move the story concisely (which is, after all, the objective), but style for the sake of style does not an auteur make. In fact, it's pretty boring. FYI, styles have underwent numerous transmogrifications since the 20s. This is illustrated in the Reis book.

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Better Projection Pays!

I guess you've never edited a film, and if you have you must be a VERY strong traditionalist and haven't seen many avante-guarde short film like Brackhage or Deren. When editing styles like that of short film (or even music video) step into mainstream at all it is just misunderstood.

Sometimes mainstream doesn't have to be "textbook"
 

Point in case: Lost Highway
 

all in all- great show. everyone else has pretty much said everything that needs to be said.

Tyler - exactly how is Saving Private Ryan a propaganda pic? in what parts exactly?
 

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The man with the magic hands.

Who else? If it's only to please a director's whims, then this underscores what I said about self-indulgence; 3-hour movies being made out of 90 minute stories.

>>I guess you've never edited a film, and if you have you must be a VERY strong traditionalist and haven't seen many avante-guarde<<

I'm of the "less is more" school. You'd be surprised at how many times NOT making a cut will speak volumes. I don't consider myself an editor, nor even an amateur filmmaker, but I have done 16mm work in the 70s, and I have a 3/4" and NLE system in my house for video. I have seen some of the type of films you mention, but don't "get" them.

In 1982, my union local assigned me to dailies work on a movie called "And They're Off..." (don't look for it, it was never released). I struck up a friendship with the supervising editor, Bob Swink, ACE (an Oscar winner for ROMAN HOLIDAY). He was a kindly fellow who'd come out of retirement for this picture, and he patiently answered all my questions. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the editing room. The other two editors on the show were of the 'progressive' school, and had reservations about Bob's "traditionalist" technique. I realize the following isn't unusual, but I recall one particular sequence, cut by one of these cool-cats, was virtually unintelligible; you simply could not follow it. The director asked him to re-cut the scene several times, but he kept drawing blanks. OLD-TIMER-PRO TO THE RESCUE! After screening Bob Swink's cut, it was like a cloud had been lifted. It magically made the scene COHERENT! So you can't tell me about what works and what doesn't, because I've been there and seen it both ways.

>>styles like that of short film (or even music video) step into mainstream it is misunderstood.<<

You didn't comment on my question of making a movie out of sequence. I believe you'd admit it would be a jumble, rendering it worthless as a storytelling vehicle. So herein lies the key issue: at some point, you have to preserve the integrity of the process. And with big screens, the audience can't move their eyes and/or heads fast enough to follow hither-and-yon editing! Physics come into play. This was learned with Cinerama. Therefore, what might work for a video won't always work on the big screen.

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Better Projection Pays!

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The man with the magic hands.
 

Carl Welles made an interesting observation about avante garde filmmakers not being successful in the business. I knew two such people who believed they had all the answers, and what the world needed was their high art. Once they made films, the world would stand on end. One fellow, who was my relief projectionist in the 70s, had the financial backing of his wealthy father. This guy did make his films; oddball, 'experimental'-type entries which were supposed to garner deep, intellectual meaning, but instead left the viewer feeling unenlightened. He even did some of these films in 35mm. Today, he's working in his father's business, and has nothing to do with movies. During the same time period, I knew a professor, who was head of a university film school. I was very surprised at her lack of understanding of basic filmmaking principles and equipment! I kept saying, "And you're head of the film school?!" Anyway, her films had a 'punk-rock', grungy look about them and, of course, they were "high-art", naturally! Today, she sits with her orange head in a bare-walled apartment, hoping one day the phone will ring with a contract for MTV interstitials. The moral of the story: make all the artsy-fartsy stuff you want, but get it out of your system early because it won't put food on the table. The motion picture industry is a BUSINESS and you have to make saleable material... as in SUBSTANTIVE.

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Better Projection Pays!

The character Maximus seems to have more in common with Commodus' successor Pertinax. Pertinax was a military man who was indirectly involved in a number of plots to kill Commodus.

One other historical note; the horses didn't have stirrups in those days. I guess it's hard finding that many extras who can ride without them!

 

Welcome, Darcy!
 

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Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut