DVDs

Gladiator

Region 1

Region 4

By Richard Moore

Roman civilisation. Okay, Rome was the biggest and strongest of the ancient empires and, at her peak, ruled a quarter of the world's people, but she was an often brutal mistress.

The Roman answer to political manouevring was assassination. The Roman answer to becoming emperor was assassination. In fact, an awful lot of Roman answers had to do with deciding things with the sword, dagger, or by poison.

Rival, or enemy, states copped visits from Roman legions whose discipline and sword skills turned legionnaires into walking meat carvers who would slice through enemy ranks.

Face-to-face killing was what legionnaires liked and enjoying the sight of flowing blood was not limited to soldiers, the Roman population loved blood and guts and were fed it by the colosseum-full.

The Games put on by emperors kept the populace entertained - and the most acclaimed of these were the gladiator battles. Usually slaves, the gladiators would fight to the death in brutal clashes that few movies have tried to emulate - until now.

Gladiator is a blood-and-sandal epic that transports you back to the nasty realities of ancient Rome where treachery and brutality were considered the nice parts of society.

Starring Russell Crowe, Gladiator not only has a terrific plotline, but stunning special effects that take full advantage of the latest computer graphics.

Crowe is Maximus, favoured general and adopted son of Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris), one of the best emperors Rome had. He has just won a bloody victory over the Germans and is looking forward to returning home to Spain when political hell breaks loose.

Aurelius meets an untimely end and his mentally unstable son, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), takes over and, seeing Maximus as a rival, tries to bump him off.

Things get very nasty for Maximus and his family and so he begins life as a slave and then as a gladiator on his path to exacting revenge on the new Caesar.

Now, there are plenty of historical holes in Gladiator - too many to go into here - but it is, after all, Hollywood and as long as you don't watch it with a copy of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire sitting on your lap, and suspend belief on some of the storyline, you'll enjoy it as a terrific action/adventure movie.

The imagery is astounding.

The opening battle against the Germans is a gruesome, but exciting, spectacle and sets the tone for the gladiatorial combats that follow.

They are inventive, fast-paced and bloody, giving you the feeling that perhaps the less hard-hitting epics of days gone by wussed it on the level of violence.

One of the outstanding things about Gladiator is the seamless mixing of real and computer-generated images.

The rendered buildings of ancient Rome look glorious and the sweeping vistas of the city are stunning. Some have slammed them for not being accurate - "You'd never see the Colosseum from the Forum." - but Gladiator was never promoted as the Melway of Ancient Times.

And when Maximus has to battle tigers popping from under the sandy floor of the arena it looks as if our hero is genuinely half a yellow-and-black whisker away from a toothy end.

The technical transfer on to DVD is excellent - the result of strict overseeing by the director - with a razor-like sharpness to the imagery and an almost perfect colour palette.

It would be easy to rave on about this movie but it's sufficient to say that most of the hype is true - it is a sensational yarn - well-acted, well-directed and tremendously exciting.

For mine, one of the highlights is the final, marvellous performance from Oliver Reed as the former gladiator turned gladiator-master. He may have been a hell-raiser but, by crikey, he could act. This is one of his finest.

Definitely a must-have for the DVD library.

Conclusion:

Movie: 90%

DVD Extras: 95%