Gladiator

"Are you not entertained!"

From Director Ridley Scott comes a blast of a epic story of one of the most historic empires to ever exist! Gladiator is a full paced action film, filled with moments that will have you cheering for the titular hero and scolding at the creepy and tyrannical emperor.

Its a spectacular dive into ancient Rome, which doesn't get made much these days, and gives us an epic blockbuster of the ancient sport of the gladiator games and why they were so popular during ancient times. Obviously they didn't have Football or Tennis back in the day, other than illegal boxing, they basically had the Hunger Games except without the kids, and they were all slaves. It was basically an illegal sport that kept everyone entertained.

Scott made a spectacle of showing the life of a gladiator and how much power they possessed in the Colosseum and gave us a story of the ages about a disgraced Roman general out for revenge against his emperor. Its a brutal and thrilling ride and its worth every minute as you watch our characters fight for their lives in a truly dangerous part of human history.

The film follows Maximus Decimus Meridius, played by Russel Crowe, who is betrayed by Commodus, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who slaughters his family and takes his place as Emperor of the Roman Empire. Maximus then gets sold into the gladiator games and quickly wins the audience through his immense combat skills and works his way through the fighters to face Commodus.

Its a gripping story, filled with action scenes that are intense and thrilling to watch and emotional moments that you will remember ten minutes after watching it. Seeing Maximus win the peoples favour is truly breath taking as you see a lowly slave become more powerful than an emperor!

A lot of thought was undertaken into making this film, thought and research. As is with everything historical, Scott had to know what the games were and what they meant to the roman people, how the gladiators became so well known and how to make his matches as gripping as the real ones were.

He wanted to make a Roman film about what made the romans so famous, not just their ingenuity or their pride on the battlefield, but the games that held the empire together. He wanted to create a spectacle about the spectacle and form a heartbroken tragic story around it to give meaning to those who died in the Colosseum.

This was the first time I saw Phoenix perform and I was stunned at how well he portrayed a truly barbaric villain. Commodus was bloodthirsty and loved his own sister in a weird, Game of Thrones sort of way and doesn't hesitate to destroy his enemies for his own agenda.

He shows the true nature of the gladiator games and how barbaric it was. He shows the power of dictatorship and how much diplomacy was needed in ancient times by being a selfish child of a man who wants nothing more than to butcher people for fun and destroy entire nations and get together with his own sister. This man was weird.

Djimon Hounsou gives his acting debut as Juba, a fellow gladiator who helps Maximus survive the games. He helps Maximus find his will to fight again and keeps him going as he searches for vengeance against Commodus and reminds him of what freedom truly means to a man.

He spent his whole life in chains and he dreamt of walking out of the Colosseum with his freedom earned and he eventually got it, just after he witnessed his friend die for the glory of Rome. Juba is the emotional catalyst that gets Maximus back on his feet and makes him realise how much a man is actually worth, Juba is by his side throughout the film and Maximus survives to protect him and make sure he gets his friend out of the games however he can.

In this film, we are fully transported to Ancient Rome with some incredible production design and narrative scriptwriting. Its like we were seeing it through a vision and it feels like a history lesson. I learnt more about Romans in this film than I did in year 4 in primary school (Elementary school to my American readers) and I found it far more interesting to learn about the gladiator games and what they meant to the romans.

The whole point of the film, from what I watched, was to educate the viewer on the games and what the gladiators had to go through and how the audience loved them. They were a distraction from the corruption in the Roman senate and the ongoing wars and that meant power truly rested in the peoples hands. As long as they were distracted, they wouldn't notice all the bad things and rise up and become a mob, which is what the Roman senators feared.

The film is also a Romeo and Juliet tale, in the sense that the hero died in the end after finding his vengeance and peace. Maximus's family is slaughtered because he renounced Commodus, who took the throne from his father by force after being rejected by him, and he finds no peace until the end and issues his final orders.

Its a poetic end to the hero who just wants to be reunited with his family and he dies a martyr after proving Commodus's treachery and the failure of Rome. He becomes a man of the people and the people loved him right from when he won his first match and that's what gave Maximus the determination he needed to keep going. He does more for the people of Rome than all the senators combined could not do.

The reason this film won awards was because of how well done it was as an action blockbuster. There is no delicately written speeches nor any cinematic wizardry, its just the story that makes this film so great. I could go on about how well written the film was and how the narrative structure is on point throughout its runtime and how incredible the production design was.

People loved Gladiator when it came out because it was thrilling from start to finish and it kept everyone on the edge of their seats as they saw the main characters battle their way to survival. This is one of the very few media productions that highlight the gladiator games and Scott took advantage of this and wove a tragic and epic tale around it to create one of my favourite films ever.

If you haven't watched Gladiator yet, then please put whatever device you are reading down and turn the TV on and grab a bag of popcorn and watch it because I guarantee you will not regret it. This is Ridley Scott's best work, in my opinion, and I highly recommend you watch it if you are a history nerd or a moviegoer or if you are just plain, straight bored!

Gladiator is available on Netflix and DVD.