My Review of "Gladiator"

Gladiator is an epic period piece that was released back in the year 2000. Watching this movie again brings back a flood of nostalgia and also reminded me as to why I loved this movie back then. Strangely enough, I think this movie really resonates to today's climate more so than back in the day. In that respect I think it really aged quite nicely.

The movie starts off with an understanding of what was going on at the time of this movie. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius has just about taken over the world as they knew it. Germania was the last remaining piece that they wanted and that's how the movie starts off.

We soon then get introduced to our main hero Maximus. He's the lead Roman general that Marcus has entrusted over the Germania campaign. He of course decimates the Germania troops and I guess there's no more fighting left. It's supposed to be Maximus' retirement send off. He expects to go back home to his wife and son after 3 long years away from them.

Of course this isn't the plan for Marcus as he has had an epiphany. He realizes that the politicians have lost sight of what Rome is. His focus for the last decade has been conquering whereas he should have been focusing on the people and the city. Now the politics in the city has become corrupted and he's afraid what's going to happen when he gets back.

Marcus is really old now so he wants to pass on his powers to Maximus. He likes the fact that Maximus is a reluctant hero and isn't corrupted by politics. Unfortunately in all this, Marcus has ignored the fact that he has his own son and daughter. His son Commodus is expecting to be next in line for emperor and when this news hits him, well things don't really turn out that great.

Commodus does the stereotypical power hungry moves that results in Maximus losing everything. This wouldn't be a movie if isn't for the fact that Maximus gets found by some merchants and becomes an arena gladiator. Here he's going to have to fight his way up to enact his revenge on the evil Commodus.

Fairly straight forward story and easy to keep up with. Even the friends that Maximus befriends are quite one dimensional but you root for them as the movie progresses. There's a sense of comradery between the fellow gladiators that eventually make them feal like a team. That's all due to some good acting, good writing and good pacing. Pacing is interesting too because this movie moves along pretty well for a 3 hour epic adventure.

The reason why I feel that this movie resonates to today's climate more so than yesteryear is because of the concept of influence and mob mentality. Back in the day social media was a foreign concept. Today we see just how powerful one person can be in a mob mentality environment. This kind of reflects the events of the movie. It's funny because the more you think about it the more you realize nothing has really changed over thousands of years.

I also liked how they went into the mental instability of Commodus. They give him a semi-justified reason for being so insane. There is reason for his madness and it's not entirely unbelievable. Again we can see some of the politics that they played off in this movie happening today. In fact a lot of the issues that they talked about in this movie are still very relevant today.

Surprisingly, the special effects are pretty well done in this movie. Yes some of the CGI is pretty apparent especially when you see the movie in higher definition but the sound engineering of this movie are remarkable. It really helps you get into the movie.

Overall, I had a blast watching this movie again. I couldn't believe how well this movie has stood the test of time. I'm curious how people will react to watching this movie for the first time in this day in age. It's really quite impressive what they did with this movie. I have to give this movie an 8.5 out of 10. This is definitely a classic and I will continue to recommend this one to all my friends.