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Gladiator
I thought Gladiator was either going to be a modern classic, or a good bad movie (for those of you who wonder what a
good bad movie is, watch Starship Troopers). Unfortunately, Gladiator was neither of these. The concept was good, if
a little hackneyed: disgraced Roman general returns to Rome to challenge the dissolute Emperor. The dialogue was even
good. In fact, most of the movie up to Maximus' final battle in the Colosseum was pretty reasonable. I thought the final
resolution of the plot was pretty weak, and I am reliably informed that the whole concept of the final scene was lifted
from the novel version of Dune. The other thing I really didn't like about Gladiator was that every time Maximus was
close to death, this cheesy New Agey Titanic-y sort of music would play and there would be these scenes of Maximus
sort of drifting over a bunch of rocks and scenes of Maximus' home in black and white. Maybe it was supposed to
represent the Roman afterworld, but I just thought it was totally cheesy, I'm sorry.
I think most of the costumes were really accurate. The hairstyles were accurate, the armor was accurate, the jewelry was
accurate. Maximus' final battle in the Colosseum is where it starts to fall apart again. I'm sorry, but Roman women did
not wear corsets. They hadn't been invented yet. That corset totally stuck out like a sore thumb from all of the rest of
the costuming in the movie. What was the costume director thinking?
Score:  
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