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This is a Gladiator review from the Norwegian newspaper Bergensavisen. The movie got five out of six.

Maximum Circus

After Ridley Scott spent a billion kroner [the Norwegian currency] and 2000 actors in an attempt to revive the sword- and sandal-genre, we can say that yes, it's alive.

by BJØRN O. MØRCH LARSEN
translated by Kim E.

Then again you can argue that of course it should be alive. That the visionary estetic with Alien and Blade Runner on his account wouldn't come and present us with the emperor's new clothes after having those sums to spend. Well, yes, but not everything can be bought for money.

FICTION

Gladiator takes place in the Roman empire, in the holes of our time's fact knowledge about the same period. In this playground - around real historical persons, events and architecture (computer animated, though) - director Scott has placed his story. From it, general Maximus (Russell Crowe) appears, a hero as big as they can only be in this type of films.

We find ourselves in a time where going from a war to deathly gladiator matches is regarded as a huge step towards civilization, a period where political traps often are a knife in the back. You can only dare making a film about this period by assuming that today's audience is as bloodthirsty as that time's "more blood" screaming gladiator lovers. And of course Scott is right, as long as Colosseum is exhanged for Bergen Cinema and the likes.

The story is built on the good old Ben Hur-receipe. Courage and barbarism, love and hate, blood and goo - and countless sandals.

VIOLENT STUFF

The dying emperor Marcus Aurelius loves his general Maximus as his son, his son as another man's dog, and will leave his empire according to that. When he dies - the emperor begs - will Maximus then take over to preserve the Roman empire's best interests? While Maximus ponders this task, the awaiting heir, the emperor's son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) smells the plot and kills his father. He then orders Maximus, his wife and his son killed. Fortunately, for the movie's sake, our hero gets away from the execution. But later he is captured and sold as a slave to re-appear - first as a kind of Gandhi gladiator tired of live, but soon with one goal only: Revenge, over the new emperor.

And the movie has just started.

Maybe you can grasp the dimensions of this epos. And yes, it is a pompous melodrama, like Ben Hur, Spartacus, Cleopatra, Mad-Max and Braveheart. A kind of artistic WrestleMania, with Kurosawa-like picture choices and Hamlet-ish proportions of the main character's sorrow and doubts. It's bread and circus, unimportant fiction, but entertaining.

And then again, what can you get for a billion kroner today...

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