Rate that Movie: Gladiator

I'm sorry for doubleposting, but I (re)watched Gladiator.

First, the good: it is a very competent story in its purpose; it's epic when it has to be, and emotional when it has to be. The director clearly knows how to handle the emotions, and this is specially noticeable at the final scene, which is easily the greatest of this movie. The pacing for such a long story is very well-distributed, which means that regardless of how little I actually emotionally get from this work, I keep entertained and that's a big enough merit.

The character development, however, is very shallow, they basically don't show change through the whole story and the only one who may have a noticeable development, Maximus, is sort of burdened by an inefficient performance of Russell Crowe. This wouldn't be a problem if the time exposition of this movie wasn't so large, but it ends up tiring. Its main problem is that it depends on those moments of epicness and tragedy, and the rest are lacking. Simply because the characters are not interesting. At times, I enjoyed the scenes at the emperor's palace more than the whole drama of Maximus.

The soundtrack is another issue I have. It really drove me nuts at some times. I didn't understand the aesthetical choice behind Now we are free at the ending. Just no.

I wasn't going to post, but then I thought, why let them have all the fun.

I absolutely love it. It was briefly my favorite movie of all time and has fallen only one slot in the last 14 years. I saw it five times in the theater and own both the standard DVD edition and the extended edition. I also used to have it on VHS.