Sword and sandal (S&S) movies are a particular pleasure of mine, and having published nothing in quite a while, I thought I would return with a article on the genre, since it is one very dear to my heart. I’m a fan of action-adventure movies in general, but when you add historical context to them, I become immediately intrigued.
Having said that, it’s a genre that has yielded its fair share of disappointments. More often than not, and for a variety of reasons, productions in this field end up becoming bland, unengaging, lazy cash grabs. Detractors of the genre might even say that they are all like this, deep down. But some are, inarguably, better than others, and among those, one in particular is most often mentioned as the gold standard example: Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.
Released in 2000, Gladiator saved historical epics in the eyes of many from falling into obscurity, at least for a few more years. The grandeur of the production, the scale of the presentation and of its action, how it brought novelty to tales of righteous heroes and maniacal villains in a world that audiences reveled in exploring and knowing about were key components to making Gladiator a huge success, both financially, and critically, even to the point of winning the Academy Awards for Best Movie and Best Actor for Russell Crowe, among other accollades.
I’m sure most of you have seen Gladiator, and probably enjoy it a lot. Widespread praise is given to Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as Commodus, to the quality of the dialogue, the political intrigue involving the Roman Senate, the immersion within the Roman world the movie instills, and of course, the epic setpieces in the Colosseum.
That being said, for me, it’s not all that it’s made out to be. Gladiator is a fine movie, don’t get me wrong, but I find several flaws, or rather, missed opportunities that keep it from being particularly outstanding, or even, particularly entertaining, the latter being a key element in a good S&S movie.
Today, I’ll be comparing Gladiator with another example within the genre, arguably one of the spawns of the very revival Gladiator provoked among this type of films. Wolfgang Peterson’s Troy, released in 2004, was in many ways, a valiant attempt at replicating the fervor Gladiator created in 2000. It didn’t quite succeed on the same level. With almost double the budget, it yielded a slightly higher box office return than Gladiator, making it at least a financial success, but where the production found roadblocks was in the critical reception. Most didn’t find any particular elements to compliment in this adaptation of Homer’s epic poems, focusing instead on where the movie didn’t live up to expectations.
Criticism focused on multiple elements, namely on how much the movie simplifies and minimizes the original story, on how the performances didn’t live up to the epic nature of these characters, most notably in the case of Brad Pitt’s Achilles, on the movies length of two and a half hours, on how the story loses direction towards the end, among other lackluster aspects. I do acknowledge many of these arguments, and will cover them later on, but to me, they don’t hinder my enjoyment nearly as much as the numerous elements of Gladiator that I find lacking.
Yes, today I’m making and defending the outrageous statement: Troy is better than Gladiator.
I’ll give you the general basis for this thesis and then move on to more specific examples to demonstrate my reasonings. Simply put, Troy, which is an adaptation of Homer’s epic as opposed to Gladiator being based on an original script and story, benefits greatly from deeper and more interesting characters, more compelling thematic explorations of the original myth, far better action sequences and a specific duel that to me ranks among the best fights of the genre, maybe of the industry (you know which one it is). I’ll admit that no one performance in Troy is better than Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus (though two for me come slightly close, and several are better than anything Crowe does in the movie), and Gladiator’s cinematography is indeed superior.
But in the end, my main argument will be based on the fact that to me, Gladiator presents a pretty basic premise, with bland, uninteresting characters making broad epic-sounding statements that have such little substance to them and are built on the simplest of themes, in a setting that while interesting, takes a backseat to the simplest revenge story that is as predictable as they come, even more so than Troy, which is based on a pretty well-known myth.
Troy, being a pretty basic premise, deconstructs that premise to explore what’s behind the simplicity of the original myth. True, the result of that deconstruction is not particularly deep, but at least an attempt is made. At the same time, regardless of performance, our lead, or leads in Troy, are far more entertaining to watch than Gladiator’s, they talk about more interesting things besides revenge or the bland contrast of Democracy = Good and Tyranny = Bad, and even have some pretty compelling arcs and growth. Plus, like I said, Troy has a far better production value and way better action sequences. Finally, on the length, both movies have virtually the same runtime, so, I won’t even touch on that point.
Touching on the story and thematic differences, Gladiator’s narrative structure can be split into two conflicts: the personal journey of Maximus to obtain revenge on Commodus, for destroying his life, killing his Emperor/Friend/Father Figure, and having his wife and son assassinated, and the struggle to end Commodus’ tyranny as Emperor, which is a threat to the Roman Empire’s stability and the well-being of its people, with the goal of restoring the Senate’s power and reinstating a democratic regime. This is a sound structure, with a narrow-scope conflict and a broad-scope conflict. The problem in Gladiator, is that the former conflict takes center stage, and is brought down by being over-emphasized, despite its simplicity, while giving little depth to the key players to keep us engaged.
We can tell my the 10 minute mark that Maximus is good and Commodus is evil, and that is never changed or challenged ever, for over two hours. Maximus remains inescapably good, with no flaws to make him more relatable or interesting, and Commodus just becomes creepier in his scenes, no less evil, no more sympathetic or even reasonable, just more maniacal and less profound. Commodus’ best scene is again, right at the beginning with his father, because that’s where he is the most emotional, understandable and empathetic, and he just becomes more cartoonish as the movie goes on, making it blander and blander to have him on screen.
The conflict regarding the stability of Roman society and how it may not benefit under the rule of an emperor anymore is the more compelling topic of discussion, because with little complexity to the characters, I end up being drawn to the complexity of the world. But this is just a complementary facet of the film’s plot, and not given much time or gravitas. Ask anyone to tell you their favourite scene in Gladiator and no one will mention any moment that has anything to do with the Senate subplot, and I don’t blame them, it’s merely supplementary.
What we end up with is a repetitive slog through Maximus’ journey. When we reach the 1 hour and 30 minute mark and I’m faced with yet another scene of Maximus talking about his dead wife, who never said a word, or his dead son, who never said a word, I feel nothing and I’m kinda bored. Then we switch to Commodus who is being randomly sexually creepy with his sister, talking about how he’ll rule as he sees fit, and I’m in awe of Phoenix’s commitment, but underwhelmed by how empty this character has become, he’s just insane, maniacal, unredeemable, and less entertaining by the second. Gladiator does have some nice moments of levity with its supporting cast, but they serve little purpose beyond providing some comic relief and grounding Maximus within the world. Incidentally these are the best character interactions in the movie because they are the most human, and most authentic, but they do little to save the characterization of the leads.
Turning over to Troy, we find a similar two-conflict structure, maybe three depending on your perspective but I hesitate to go that far. First we have the overarching conflict of the Trojan War itself: Paris steals Helen (who in this adaptation is fully in love with him), the Spartan queen from Menelaus, its king, and takes her back to Troy. Menelaus calls on his brother Agamemnon, the most powerful Greek king, who gathers all the Greek armies to march on Troy, get Helen back and obtain unparalleled glory and power. At the same time we have the internal conflict of our protagonist Achilles, the most skilled soldier of the war who, while fighting for the Greeks, wrestles with his yearning for eternal fame and glory as he learns that he might want a life of peace more.
On paper, this is already more interesting. In the original myth, the main driver of the war and of the characters’ motivations is honor, honor for themselves, honor to please the gods, honor to prove themselves the better men, and thus worthy of the victory, the treasures, the power, the glory. Troy attempts to bring these characters down to Earth a bit and so do the themes. It starts out with a simple forbidden love story, and had it remained as such, it would have been disappointing, but we quickly see that what it really boils down to is pride and greed, much more pervasive and human characteristics.
Everyone in Troy is flawed, with the exception of Hector who comes the closest to mirroring Maximus, but escapes his blandness by being much more of a realist, by not being so gloomy, and because he isn’t the ultimate hero battling ultimate evil. He’s a good man in a horrible position, forced to fight against greedy and proud men who, despite that, have a legitimate justification for invading due to his brother’s mistake. It’s complex, it’s intricate, and it’s much more engaging. It helps that Eric Bana gives the best performance in the movie, making Hector incredibly empathetic and tragically relatable.
On the other side of the spectrum you have Agamemnon, the closest thing to an absolute antagonist in Troy, and the most “evil” of the characters. Agamemnon is greedy, has little care for human life, prioritizes himself and his glory and power above everything else and was only looking for a pretext to invade Troy and burn it to the ground to assert his dominance. Despite this, he manages to be far less cartoonishly evil than Commodus. He still is, mind you, but you do see moments of genuine fear, affection towards his brother, rage at his death and insecurity about Achilles’ influence over the army and in those moments where he sees the Trojans winning. Commodus also has these moments, like I said for example, with his father, but they are always presented in complement with his general creepiness. I think Agamemnon has more moments where he is more than just evil, where I almost see him as human. With Commodus that only happens that one time, in that one scene, and never again.
Smack in the middle of this, is Achilles, our true main protagonist, and the one character who goes through a major arc in Troy, something that Gladiator also sorely lacks. Achilles is proud, callous, revels in excessive behaviour and doing what he wants. He enjoys the glory of being the most skilled warrior, but he doesn’t see himself as a pawn of Agamemnon. Therefore, in Troy, he is kind of a third party in this conflict, even removing himself from the whole war in the middle of the movie and deciding to leave, albeit for a moment. His journey leads to an understanding that there is greater joy and happiness to be found in life beyond the fame and eternal glory of being the greatest warrior. He learns this through a romantic relationship with Briseis, which is a little cliché and probably the weakest part of the movie, but I at least appreciate that something is done with him.
The supporting cast of Troy is just as strong as Gladiator’s, and in my eyes, more memorable, mostly because they’re played by more well-known actors and leave more of an impact. Paris serves a unique role as the supposed hero fighting for love, but who ends up bringing doom to his family and his city, is cowardly and reckless and only kills Achilles because he presumably fumbles his arrow, accidentally hitting his heel.
Priam is a kind and sensible king (contrasting with Agamemnon), but also a little foolish and naive, traits he shares with Paris in a way, but who gets a magnificent moment to shine in his scene in Achilles’ tent, maybe the best scene in the movie, where Peter O’Toole really shows his true power as an actor (I know he walked out of the premiere, I’m sorry he didn’t like the movie, but this scene is really glorious, and very well written).
Menelaus is proud and honor-bound, but clearly still a hard man, capable of being brutal, and presumably abusive to his wife Helen, though you never really see that on screen, and not being greedy or power-hungry like Agamemnon, he comes off as a bit more sympathetic, especially when Paris runs away from him and he shouts to Helen: “Is this what you left me for?”. In the context of the warrior male dominated ancient Greek society, this question carries with it a lot understandable frustration.
I still like Juba, Proximo and Hagen in Gladiator, and the Senators offer up interesting contextualization to the world, but only the first two are given any real characterization, which I do appreciate, and like I said before, provide Maximus with his most human and relatable moments, where he is separated from his position as the ultimate hero and gets to act normal. But these examples are fewer, and far between each other. Juba and Proximo do little to advance their own stories, because they are tied to Maximus, they support him, entirely and exclusively, and so I can’t really praise their presence too much.
On the presentation I admit that Gladiator is all around superior, shots are better framed, production design is more immersive, the story takes the viewer to more locations, and the music is also more cleverly composed and integrated. But these are not slam dunks over Troy, and honestly don’t really change my position that much. Troy struggles with its constant beach setting, which is present in fight scenes as well, but it compensates with more epic set pieces, with huge armies giving off a great sense of scale, great choreography, and even some broad and stable shots of the action, giving the viewer a better sense of what is happening and where, while Gladiator implements more shaky-cam and close-ups in fights, which I also am not a big fan of, which is a key reason why I think Troy has the edge in this element.
Brad Pitt admittedly is not the strongest as Achilles, but he certainly has the presence, physicality and look of a Greek hero. It’s simply his delivery that falters, and since the dialogue he has with Briseis is not that well crafted, scenes where they are together stick out a little more. I don’t think he is as bad as some say, but I do recognize and accept the critique. It doesn’t take away from his power in fight scenes where I really think the film makers captured the mythical nature of Achilles’ prowess in combat. Even in a movie with no mythology present in an active way, Achilles’ comes off as inhumanely skilled. Even in his fight with Hector, which is the most “even” in the movie, Achilles is so clearly superior that it’s just a ticking clock until Hector loses, which I find very well done, because Achilles should never appear to be in danger of losing, that is not the point of his character.
All in all, beyond all the reasons I listed as to why I prefer Troy over Gladiator, the most important is that I enjoy watching Troy more, regardless of whether Gladiator is more competently made. I enjoy Sword and Sandal movies that are epic in scope, have solid scripts and performances, engaging characters, a rich world, are well produced with a lean towards practical shooting and being on location, and that are fun to watch, packed with energy and forward momentum, and in most of these elements, I find Troy to have the edge. I know I’m in the minority and you are of course free to think that I’m totally in the wrong and I respect that. Feel free to tear me apart in the comments, I actually encourage it, but at the same time, I thank you for stopping and hope you had fun reading. We can just agree to disagree.