Ridley Scott has certainly had an unusually long, influential, but nonetheless inconsistent career as a director, and Gladiator definitely stands as one of his most noteworthy, but nonetheless divisive efforts. After all, not only did it win the Oscar for Best Picture that year, but it was also a significant commercial success, grossing close to half a billion dollars worldwide (which is especially impressive considering that it's an R-rated, 2 & 1/2-plus hour, non-franchise historical epic, released at a time when Hollywood's grosses were significantly less gargantuan than they are now)... while on the other hand, it still seemed to displease a decent number of film fans and critics regardless, including an infamous 2-star rating from Mr. Roger Ebert himself. But, while my recent rewatch of the film did clarify certain problematic aspects of it that I hadn't really noticed beforehand, helping me to better sympathize with its various detractors, the overall power & effect of Gladiator is still just so strong, that I can't help but declare it to be a flawed modern classic, but a modern classic nonetheless.
To get my newfound issues with Gladiator out of the way right away, I have to say that I now better understand the people who complained that its tone was rather, er, monotone, a its almost relentlessly morose, downbeat nature comes across as being borderline tragedy porn at times, even by the usual standards of a dark revenge narrative, and there are times I can't help but wish Scott had injected just a bit more levity into the proceedings, as too many of the characters seem to do almost nothing but just wallow in their own tortured misery for the entirety of its running time. This is especially true of the main villain, the Emperor Commodus, as he often comes across as a somewhat cartoonish, one-dimensional baddie, but even Maximus's own family, who are his main motivators during the film, get essentially zero character development here, as they basically just exist as plot devices, as people who are there just to die in order to justify Maximus going on his warpath later on. Now, I know they aren't anywhere near being the main characters here, so I'm not expecting much of a focus on them, but something besides just being referenced in dialogue and a few shots of them standing around in a field would've been appreciated, Ridley.
However, all of that being said, one of the main reasons why I still love Gladiator on the whole is, while the emotional beats it hits may be rather repetitive, they're still incredibly intense and unabashedly raw nonetheless; I really became invested in Maximus's epic quest for vengeance "in this life or the next", which is written with sharp, memorable, insightful dialogue, and which Scott portrays through the huge, sweeping scope and grand tragedy of the overall tale. The shots of Maximus's family waiting for him in the afterlife, and the sight of him finally reuniting with them at the end, never fail to pluck at a couple of my heartstrings, and you can feel the righteous rage in every ounce of Russell Crowe's performance here. Besides that, the rest of the cast fills out Gladiator well, such as Richard Harris's old, war-weary Emperor Marcus Aurelius, or Connie Nielson as Marcus's daughter, Lucilla, who is torn between her past love for Maximus, his blind rage at her for being related to the man responsible for his family's deaths, and the fear of her brother's twisted desires, which are alternatively incestuous at certain times, and downright homicidal at others.
And, in addition to all of that, Gladiator draws a lot of strength from capturing the cultural mystique of the Roman Empire at its peak, with the weight of history laying heavily on the film (in a good way), whether it be in the dusty markets of Rome, the mighty catapults and calvary of the Empire's great army, or, of course, the bloody gladiatorial combat of The Colosseum, where about a good half of the film's scenes are set, which play a bit like similar moments from mid-century Hollywood sword-&-sandals epics like Ben-Hur & Spartacus, but updated with a modern emphasis on gallons of spilled blood, and piles of disemboweled guts. And, while the action in Gladiator isn't quite as coherent as I would've preferred, with too much over-editing, shake-y handheld camera work, and overly close framings of the combat that sometimes make it difficult to make out exactly what's going on, just the sight of epic, bloody, gladiator-on-gladiator combat adds a lot to the film, whether it be the recreation of The Battle Of Carthage where the barbarians get to win this time, an intense, relentless fight with a legendary, fearsomely-masked retired champion (where ravenous tigers keep getting released at the most inopportune moments), or one final, man-to-man duel to the death with the loathsome, tyrannical Emperor himself.
Gladiator has all of this and then some, and, again, while I can now better respect and understand why certain people don't care for it, the overall experience of it for me is still just so strong, with its lavish, grandiose period detail, and Maximus's tragic tale of righteous vengeance, that I can't help but love it anyway. This is rousing, operatic, larger-than-life entertainment, the kind that we sadly don't see out of Hollywood much anymore, and with how powerful a cinematic experience Gladiator is on the whole, all I really have left to say now is... are you not entertained?