Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor – utter madness! Such ideas must infuriate director Ridley Scott; he and his star, Russell Crowe, regift you Gladiator instead. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially
for those of us who enjoy skull-clonking battles in the mud, a ridiculously whiny villain and fuzzy underpinnings about liberty. But overall, the tone is stranded in a middle ground, not quite dumb enough to soar like Gladiator.