“Gladiator” is the first of five movies Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott would make together and is easily the most successful. Given how fraught the production was, it’s a miracle the actor and director collaborated again. As Crowe has recounted multiple times over the years, filming essentially began with a scrap of a script, forcing the writers to come up with new pages as cameras rolled, which certainly isn’t the ideal way to work. But the result was a box office smash and Oscar winning hit.
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Well, this weekend’s “Ben-Hur” remake will likely be neither of those things, so Screen Junkies is looking back on “Gladiator” with a loving poke in the ribs in their latest Honest Trailer. They like the movie, but also lightly mock Crowe’s particularly stoic performance that doesn’t modulate all that much, Joaquin Phoenix’s weird/creepy turn, and a narrative that has all the nuance of a pro-wrestling story.
Check out the video and let us know if you think “Gladiator” has stood the test of time.