On the surface, you’d expect a smash hit movie that earned $460 million at the box office before going on to win five Academy Awards from 12 nominations (including Best Picture and Best Actor) as an indisputably adored all-time great, but there’s been some negativity thrown in the direction of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.
As Hollywood tends to do, the various studios around town saw that a blockbuster historical epic had won critical and commercial acclaim, so it was decided that everybody would throw their hats into the ring, too. As a result, we ended up with the likes of Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy, Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur, Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Pompeii, Neil Marshall’s Centurion, Kevin Macdonald’s The Eagle, Zack Snyder’s 300, Oliver Stone’s Alexander, John Lee Hancock’s The Alamo, and even Scott’s own Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood, and Exodus: Gods and Kings.
The consistency was all over the place to put it lightly, but regardless of how you feel about Gladiator, nobody can deny that it served as one of the most influential films to arrive at the turn of the millennium. Basically, what The Matrix did for leather-clad sci-fi and action flicks, Russell Crowe’s Maximus Decimus Meridius did for sweeping tales of blood and battle.
And yet, a Reddit thread has ignited a firestorm of opposing opinions after it was suggested that Gladiator isn’t just overrated, but not every good. Each to their own, we suppose, but at the very least the technical wizardry and impeccably-staged action sequences can’t come under any sort of justifiable fire.
Is Gladiator a worthy Oscar-winner, a flash in the pan, or simply a bad movie that landed at the exact right time? Based on the ongoing conversation, mileage most definitely varies depending on who you ask.