Gladiator

Title: Gladiator
Year: 2000
Director: Ridley Scott
Writers: David Franzoni, John Logan & William Nicholson
Starring: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen
Music: Lisa Gerrard, Hans Zimmer
Distinctions: Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor (Crowe), Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound; Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Phoenix), Best Cinematography, Best Score, Best Art Direction/Set Decoration and Best Editing; currently #117 on IMDb's Top 250
Length: 155 minutes
Synopsis: a Roman general becomes a slave gladiator
How I saw it: on video a couple times, most recently (rented from Netflix) yesterday
Subjective Rating: 4/10 (Eh).
Objective Rating: 2/10 (gets points for concept and acting) c. 1.7/4 (Eh)

Much of the movie is boring. The first hour or so is slow but promising, but then out of nowhere the main character is captured by a slave trader and it's like a completely different movie. The second movie would have made a great action movie - there's some very fun, badass fight choreography, and the story is too absurdly simple to justify anything else - but whenever it tries to be more (which is most of the time), it gets extremely hackneyed. The plot is obvious and recycled, the dialog is painfully corny, and the characters (which could have been very strong with this story) feel like they've been re-written by committee.