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“Father of a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife and I shall have my vengeance in this life or the next..”

That kinda explains the entire plot.

A general from Spain, Maximus (Russell Crowe), brave and respected by his soldiers has won the emperor’s heart. Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) is dying and prepares to let Maximus rule Rome to solve all the social problems caused by way too many wars and a lot of corruption in the Senate.

There is a problem to the plan though, named Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), who happens to be the emperor’s son and the logical successor to the throne. When Marcus Aurelius makes Maximus the protector of Rome, Commodus takes matters in his hands and kills his old father, while trying to murder Maximus too. The general somehow escapes and heads towards home, to see if his family is OK and save them from the new emperor’s fury.

When he arrives to his lands he finds the home burnt down and his wife and son murdered by the emperor’s soldiers. He’s then captured and sold in North Africa as a slave to Proximo (Oliver Reed), thus becoming a gladiator.

Commodus is now back in Rome, trying to serve his people “bread and circus”, to distract the population from hunger and plague. He un-bans the gladiators’ fights in the Colosseum and Maximus is brought to fight there too, with his team of gladiators.

From now on you can imagine what happens in the entire movie, I will not spoil it for you.

Even if the plot is dead easy and the movies is far from being perfect, there are still aspects that made it a good one. The Rome scenes have been shot in a “plaster like” surrounding, history contradicts some of the things presented in the movie, the entire plot is similar to any blockbuster movie with a hero with a huge gun in his hands, killing everything in his way. Still, Gladiator has something that justifies in the end all the awards and nominations it has received.

The filming is “gloomy” all through the movie. This has made some critics displeased with the idea, but in the end I think it best conveys the pain and dangers such a person had to face. The movie speaks about love, family and heroism. Maximus is well respected by his armies, he’s been a true hero and Rome could have dreamed for no better protector than him. He was a good loving husband and great father, but treachery destroyed his life.

And another thing that made me watch it for 3 times already is the MUSIC.

This movie has got an amazing soundtrack, created by Lisa Gerard (Dead Can Dance) and Hans Zimmer. And since almost all critics failed to notice the amazing music it had, I’ll invite you to listen to the title song “Now We Are Free”

June 28th, 2010 | History | 1 Comment »