“My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius... Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.” In a formulaic Hollywood revenge flick, it’s a cheddar-packed line that’d have your hackles rising rather than the hairs on the back of your neck. So what makes Gladiator more than Marked For Death in a toga? It’s not the scope, the jarring combat or even the astounding special effects. Hell, even Troy had those. No, it’s the way Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott keep the focus on the brutally personal amid the towering buildings, cast of CG thousands and intriguing political machinations.
Gladiator is all about a man in pain, a man looking to return to his family even if he has to die to do it. Yes, the swordfights and mano-a-tiger tussles are fantastic but it’s the heart behind them that keeps the adrenalin pumping. It makes Gladiator not just a good movie, but a great one.
DVD Extras:
As Scott stresses, this extended edition is NOT a Director's Cut. That's what you saw in cinemas. This is "just" a version with a dozen or so scenes originally "removed during the editing process that might be worth seeing." It boils down to dialogue-heavy stuff, basically - - a little post-battle reflection, some additional nastiness from Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus. They add colour, but you can see why Scott snipped them.
Disc one's real selling point is the Crowe/Scott commentary (the first Crowe's done). On its own, Rid's deadpan monotone would be a bore but paired with a chirpy Crowe the result is a niftily balanced two-hander.
Scott zigs into a reminiscence about marshalling the mammoth Romans vs Barbarians opening. Crowe zags across to a tale about riding "Max's horse" into a tree and gashing his cheek open. The director mentions the names of Maximus' horses, the actor guffaws and explains how Scarto and Argento roughly translate to Trigger and Silver, Roy Rogers and the Lone Ranger's gee-gees. It's a grand chattrack, minimising thespy theorising about finding character and maximising anecdotes and opinions.
Mixing talking heads with on-set footage, disc two's seven-part doc covers the production in a detail rare outside the Lord Of The Rings discs. Two bits stand out. First, the story of how the script was continually being tinkered with; it's shocking how much of Gladiator they were making up as they went along.
Second, predictably, is the look at how they compu-patched footage of Oliver Reed, who died during filming, together with shots of doubles in order to finish his performance. Reed's death meant changes - the film's final speech was supposed to be his, not Djimon Hounsou's - but the skill with which they papered over the cracks while still creating a meaningful exit for old Ollie remains gobsmacking.
Disc three is nerdsville. A grab-bag of production sketches, storyboards and deleted and abandoned sequences rubs shoulders with costume and production galleries, trailers and a breakdown of just how they created Rome inside a computer. It's a messily comprehensive way of saying, ""That's it - - this is everything we've got. Don't expect another version"." After this cracking package you won't need one.
