Gladiator

Finally, the summer movie season is here, and Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe and a wildly flamboyant Oliver Reed kick it off with Gladiator, a movie which manages to somehow put the World Wrestling Federation into a historical context. As if it needed one.

Seriously--a good third of the movie is pure fighting, filmed in an intense, visceral style that draws immediate mental comparisons to pro wrestling. Maximus (Crowe) valiantly battles his way from the lower ranks of the gladiator circuit (the "indie federations") after surviving a murder attempt by vicious Roman emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). Soon he's in the "big show," competing before Commodus himself in the Roman colisseum (Wrestlemania?) and learning how to make the people love him, as his trainer and mentor Proximo (Reed) suggests.

See, like the WWF, it's not really about delivering realistic or even satisfying kills--it's about provoking the crowd. Maximus even invents an early precedent to the "mic spots" used by today's pro wrestlers, taunting the crowd and tossing his sword into the stands. Of course, the bloodthirsty observers love this, and who wouldn't? The man kicks ass. He's the ancient world's answer to the Rock, and you will definitely smell what Maximus is cooking.

Surrounding all this fighting in Gladiator is a well-crafted historical epic cut from the same cloth as Ben Hur and Spartacus. This means that if you really want to get into the action, you have to be prepared to buy into the typical conventions of historical epics. The dialogue aims for pseudo-Shakespearean poetry but mostly comes off as melodramatic, the actors all approach their roles with an equal mix of integrity and flamboyance, and each scene is infused with a dire dramatic import. Something's always at stake, and usually it's big stuff--Maximus' family, the honor of battle, the fate of Rome as a republic.

This makes Gladiator as much of a dramatic roller-coaster as it is an action-adventure ride. The characters exist in history, but they also carry around plenty of baggage from their own personal histories, the kind of stuff that's always hanging above the movie's plot and generating a lot of the previously-mentioned import. One minute, you're thrilling at Maximus' great victory in his debut at the colisseum; the next, you're biting your nails with suspense over Commodus' meeting with Maximus in front of the assembled throngs, because Commodus thinks Maximus is dead, and Commodus' sister Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) has a crush on Maximus but Maximus thinks that Lucilla was involved in Commodus' murdering of Maximus' wife and son. Oh yeah.

It's a great ride, though, thanks largely to some fantastic performances. Crowe does more than carry Gladiator on his shoulders; he tears it from the arms of his heavyweight co-stars and hurls it into the audience's face. Somehow, the term "bravura performance" doesn't even do it justice. The man is fierce with rage, devastated by sorrow and overcome by compassion. It's unreal. His character is at the heart of the movie and he makes every second work.

He gets plenty of help from his co-stars, not that he needs it. Reed (in his final film role) hurtles himself flamboyantly over-the-top in his performance as an aging ex-gladiator who longs to make another big splash in Rome. He's part Gorilla Monsoon and part Liberace. Phoenix is packed with idiosynchrosy as Commodus; he's a twisted, bitter character who aches to fuck his sister and sees betrayal lurking in every shadow. Also strong are Djimon Hounsou as fellow gladiator Juba and Derek Jacobi, who does his typical tremendous job as freedom-fighting senator Gracchus.

Surprisingly, Scott's direction offers the film's only shaky moments. As effective as some of the fights in Gladiator are, they're just as often difficult to fathom. It's hard to tell who's doing what to whom, and whole sections of battles pass by while you try to figure out what happened thirty seconds ago. Part of that is due to poor editing--it's just too fast. The other part is due to an unrelenting sharp focus placed on most of the fight scenes, like a Fox telecast of a football game. It's painful on the eyes, which are constantly battling to interpret what they're seeing without the usual help of having a single aspect of an image to focus on. It's difficult to explain, but lemme tell ya, it's every bit as difficult to watch.

Scott achieves far greater effect from the movie's more quiet moments. There's a real lyrical beauty to his depiction of Elysium, where Scott opens the film; it's just Maximus' hand passing through fields of grain. Little moments like that add weight to the wilder dramatic and action scenes, as well as a much deeper sense of longing to Maximus' struggle for freedom and vengeance. Hell, you've simply gotta give Scott props for trying to find any silent beauty in a bombastic epic like Gladiator; you think John Woo's got any similar tricks up his sleeve for MI:2?

More than anything else, I'm just glad summer's here, I'm ready to see some pure popcorn flicks and Gladiator is a fantastic way to begin the season of cheese. It's got some strong performances, a few great one-liners and occasionally brilliant direction--but more importantly, it's got good fight scenes involving cool guys who kick major ass. As I sit here in my shorts and yearn for July, nothing else seems to matter.