[Rummyfan]

Instead, he is going to make his brave general Maximus a "trustee" until Rome is ready to become a republic again. Maximus (Russell Crowe) is a Colin Powell type of general: a nice fellow everyone respects who supposedly has no public ambitions. Commodus, though, has other ideas, and suffocates his father. As the old showbiz saying has it, dying is easy, Commodus is hard.

Gotta love Steyn!

[nfldgirl]

I was so taken with and loved this movie, that I ended up going to see it in the theater 10 times, the first time was when it had already been out for 2 months. I just could not get enough of it. I was so taken with its historical nature, the recreation of the Roman empire, the characters, the music, the costumes, everything about this movie!

[ExGeeEye]

[Enterprise]

I like the opening battle scene with those nasty barbarians. Kind of wish I were there, on either side.

[KittyKares]

I recently watched it since it happened to be on TV, and I had forgotten how good it was since I saw it many years ago. He was loyal to the dream of Rome to the bitter end and fought to keep an evil ruler (Commodus) from corrupting it.

[Allen In Texas Hill Country]

Haven’t bee n to a movie in several years but use to go regularly. If I were to rank what I’ve seen this would be number 1!!!

[Mrs. Don-o]

I’m always in awe of what the Great Steyn can do with words.

[BradyLS]

Any fans out there of the book DUNE who are also fans of this movie?

In DUNE there are two duels: one with Feyd Rautha and a gladiator. And another with Feyd and Paul Atreides. It seems to me that there are some similarities between these two duels and the one between Commodus and Maximus. Am I mistaken?

[ArtDodger]

Recently tried to watch Cruise’s ‘The Mummy’.
Crowe STOLE the whole movie. His role of Jeckyll and Hyde was brilliant. Crowe could have carried a spin off movie all by himself.
We have fine actors. The screenwriters, though....

[bramps]

How the heck does comment number 1 get removed?

[crusty old prospector]

The days of honoring yourself are over, Sire.

[El Cid]

Great Steyn article - thanks for posting.

[StormEye]

SPQR ---> Some Parts Quite Riveting.

LOL!

[hole_n_one]

It's payback time, and, under Ridley Scott's lean direction, that means there's no room for sub-plots. Somewhere in pre-production, the archers lobbed their flaming shafts at the script and laid it as bare as those Germanic forests. Not only are there no sub-plots, there's barely any plot for any sub-plot to be sub-.

[BatGuano]

“Gotta love Steyn!”
He is a great wordsmith and entertains us as well!
I love his musical references, too!