Gladiator is certainly a movie about its battles.
It is an epic, to be sure, but in the grandest tradition of the epics, the battles
are the best part. This is not to say that there was much in
Gladiator that didn't work, but rather that the plot and character
development were not the motivating factor in the film.
This backhanded compliment downplays the plot too much. Scott knows how to make movies. Maximus' journey was exciting and involving. The character development was a little weak for my taste - mostly in that none of the characters (with exception of Oliver Reed's slave owner) went through much change during the film. Maximus was already an honorable man who excelled in fighting when the movie began, and he stayed that way (all that changed with him was motivation - epics need revenge). Nonetheless, this was noticeable more in retrospect.
While I watched, I was dazzled by the wonderful shot composition, the sweeping shots of fields and epic places, and the jarring, brilliant battle scenes. Scott uses just the right amount of confusion (ala Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan or Stone's Any Given Sunday) in his action sequences, but avoids the over-confusion that Luc Besson stumbled into in The Messenger. Indeed, Gladiator's depiction of battle is as skillfully done as my favorite of medieval battle movies, Braveheart.
On an ideological level, I found some of the film's messages interesting. This is the first film I have seen in a long time that does nothing to assuage the idea that violence is good. It is my understanding that the Romans saw war as part of life, battle not as evil, but as a fact. In that light, I find it interesting that the film does not impose the American double-standard of showing violence and condemning it at the same time. Instead, the gladiators are glorified - men who will find glory in the ring (as opposed to Spartacus, where the gladiators rose up because they did not want to be gladiators any more). And what does it matter, since death will come to us all anyhow (or so they thought)?
And yet, like other "sandal-epics," Gladiator does fight a battle of ideology as well. One of the most interesting parts of the film is the intertwining of personal and ideological motivation for our Maximus' fight. He has very personal reasons for revenge upon Commodus (a whiny little twirp of an emperor) and, at the same time, a charge from the other emperor to restore Rome to its greater glory. Isn't this what makes an epic these days? Braveheart's William Wallace had the same thing - motivated by his lover's murder, he fights for "FREEDOM!"
Indeed, Gladiator fits well into the realm of the modern epic. It has awesome battle scenes, rivaling any that have been put on film to date. Russell Crowe's acting is phenomenal, offering an arsenal of nuances rarely seen in a Hollywood actor; Scott's directing is, as usual, fabulous. An awesome, blood-pounding new epic has entered the arena, and its name is Gladiator.