Gladiator (Blu-ray)

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Well, it's about time, I hear some of you videophile types saying. If the studios really wanted people to buy into Blu-ray high-definition discs, they'd give them something to watch. Videophiles have a point: Most of the folks who buy electronics--TV sets, stereo systems, and the like--are men, and no matter how good a film you may think "Revolutionary Road" or "The Soloist" is, such films are not going to persuade many guys to buy into the new technology. So it was encouraging news when Paramount/DreamWorks announced they were going to issue "Gladiator" and "Braveheart" on BD. Both films display great audiovisual potential and should appeal to videophiles looking for the "wow" factor in their movies.

In terms of extras, "Gladiator" is the sure winner, with a ton of bonus materials and two different versions of the movie, the original theatrical rendering and an extended edition that adds almost twenty more minutes, mostly blood and carnage, to the proceedings. However, in terms of ultimate picture quality, it's surely "Braveheart" and not "Gladiator" that wins a place of honor in the high-def sweepstakes gallery. More about that later.

"We who are about to die salute you."

With "Gladiator," it's déjà vu all over again: "Quo Vadis," "Demetrius and the Gladiators," "Ben Hur," "Spartacus." I thought we'd left the sword-and-scandal epics behind us forty or fifty years ago, but director Ridley Scott ("Blade Runner," "Alien," "Legend," "Black Hawk Down") resurrected the genre in 2000 and produced a rousing if less-than-cerebral version of the species for the new millennium. What the film lacks in intellect, historical fact, and common sense, it more than makes up for in action, spectacle, and grandeur. Appropriately, DreamWorks Home Entertainment present it in a Blu-ray set that's loaded with more extras than would fit in a Roman coliseum.

The story begins in the late second century at the end of a twelve-year campaign by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) against some upstart barbarian tribes in Germania. The Emperor's main man, his general, is Maximus (Russell Crowe), a strong, silent type who wins the war for him. The Romans triumph the way they always did--with superior numbers, superior cavalry, and superior tactics. Thank Maximus for this last turn. At this juncture, Marcus is old and knows he's coming to the end of his reign, and back in Rome the senators find themselves divided on whether an Emperor should continue to rule or the senate should take over. The old Emperor doesn't want his son, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), to inherit his title because he recognizes Commodus for what he is--a weak, selfish, sniveling, immature tyrant. In consequence, Marcus tries to hand over his authority to Maximus, naming him in private "Protector of Rome." But Commodus beats the old man to the punch. Before Maximus can tell anyone about the old Emperor's plans, the treacherous Commodus murders his father, assumes the emperorship, and orders Maximus executed.

Maximus escapes, only to find that Commodus has had his wife and son murdered and his villa torched. The next thing we know, and don't ask how or why, slave traders capture Maximus and sell him to a gladiatorial school (shades of "Spartacus"). From there he returns to Rome and confronts the new young Emperor. Thus, we get a plot.

Connie Nielsen is also in the cast, as Lucilla, Commodus's sister, for whom he continually lusts in a "Caligula" sort of way. Derek Jacobi (remember him from "I, Claudius"?) is Senator Gracchus, an ally of Maximus. And Oliver Reed is the slave owner, Proximo, a role he was unable to finish because he died before the film wrapped, and he had to have some of his work completed digitally. So, look for an imitation Oliver Reed late in the story.

Basically, then, "Gladiator" works as a tried-and-true revenge plot. The bad guy kills the hero's family, and the hero tries to get even. DreamWorks's tagline for the film is, "The general who became a slave. The slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an empire." That's about the size of things as the story unfolds over the course of two-and-a-half to nearly three hours, depending on which account of the story you watch, because the BD set contains both the theatrical version at 152 minutes and the extended version at 171 minutes.

The movie's primary claim to fame is its fight scenes, both in and out of the arena. Director Ridley Scott gets a lot of work from his participants, the warfare often reminding one in their energy and violence of the down-and-dirty conflicts on the football fields in Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday." Indeed, the comparison between the bloody Roman games of the past and the brutal sports of today is apt. In both cases, the combat is hot and heavy, with, naturally, the Romans coming out ahead in the blood-and-gore department. Nor is the film's R rating undeserved. Indeed, the film glorifies the very thing the Romans so loved and our modern, civilized world outwardly deplores--the spectacle of death and destruction as entertainment. I guess times haven't changed that much, after all.

Do be aware that the film may disappoint those viewers looking to find another "Spartacus." Russell Crowe is a fine actor and does his best with the title role, but the script almost never calls upon him to do more than look good in a breastplate. In fact, he makes Kirk Douglas, always an underrated actor seem like Laurence Olivier. But, then, Douglas had more to work with, including a script that allowed him some personal feelings to show through. Crowe, on the other hand, appears always to be at a distance, always a degree removed from any real human emotion, which, I suppose, is part and parcel of his character's personality. "Gladiator" is an action movie above all, and in between the battle sequences the intensity slows down considerably.

In addition to its action, where "Gladiator" scores heavily is in its digital special effects, which will come off as either awesome or phony, depending on how you look at it. A studio no longer has to produce an outer-space, sci-fi adventure anymore to benefit from the miracles of the computer age. Here, the CGI shows us the glories of ancient Rome in vivid, extravagant detail, with all the city's multitude of people, its grand, imperial buildings, its central Forum, and its spectacular architecture. But will it convince everyone? Some viewers, for instance, will find the Roman coliseum in the film magnificent and persuasive to behold. Yet, the visual-effects folks constructed about three-quarters of it on a monitor screen, which may upset the sensibilities of viewers who find it looks too fake. The new high-definition picture quality will likely only fuel the fires of contention.

Video:
As with most of Ridley Scott's work, "Gladiator" is not only figuratively dark in tone but quite literally dark as well, its colors running high to bluish-grey and dusty brown tints. Frankly, the film never did look all that good in a theater, Scott choosing to shoot most of his scenes either at night or during overcast days, or making it appear that way, and employing a variety of 16 mm cameras, 35 mm cameras, and computer CGI to achieve his effects. On the earlier DVD transfer, these dark, murky shades didn't give standard def much to work with. However, the BD50, 1080p, 2.35:1 ratio, MPEG-4 high-def transfer at least delineates its subject matter far better than the old DVD ever did, with strong contrasts and deep black levels.

Now, I wish that were all, and I could be done with it, but here's the thing: When DreamWorks first issued "Gladiator" on DVD, they used a fair amount of DNR and edge enhancement to make it cleaner and sharper. In the process, they smoothed over some of the picture's finer details and added halos around many of the objects. I'm afraid in terms of DNR and edge enhancement the new BD doesn't improve much on its old DVD counterpart, which makes one wonder if DreamWorks didn't use the same master for both transfers. The dynamic noise reduction filters out some of the film's natural print grain, and it gives some of the scenes a pasty look that isn't entirely realistic. Moreover, the edge enhancement creates some clearly visible halos, particularly noticeable if you have a very large screen or if you sit as close to your set as I do to mine.

Let's take each of these issues one at a time, but after a word of explanation: I use one of the sharpest, clearest televisions made, a Sony XBR6; I examined dozens of scenes in pause from less than a foot away in a darkened room; and I had the TV's noise filter and sharpness controls turned off. (Obviously, if you have the noise filter and sharpness control turned on, they will further exacerbate any signs of these elements in a transfer.) Moreover, in the extended version of the film, most of the added scenes do not show as much processing as the others or any at all.

OK, as to DNR filtering, studios use it on many disc transfers to decrease or eliminate grain and noise. The trouble with detecting it is that video engineers usually use it to varying degrees, as they do here. Used judiciously, it can clear up unnecessary or distracting elements in a picture; used imprudently, it can wipe out the detail and texture so necessary to make an image look real. So, how much DNR is too much? The videophile in me says it's too much when it produces a picture distinctly different from the one I remember seeing in a movie theater. To complicate matters further, studio engineers now almost always digitalize every movie, no matter how it's shot, into a high-definition master for editing, color correction, and other postproduction processing, sometimes adding--you guessed it--filtering before releasing it to theaters. So how does the "Gladiator" Blu-ray look in terms of DNR? Mostly, not bad. At times the picture is crystal clear with terrific detail; other times it looks faded and washed out, depending on the extent of director Scott's intentions to make a dull, dreary-looking Rome and Romans, and on the extent of the filtering the video engineers used. The trouble is that the video engineers did not apply DNR or edge enhancement consistently. They applied it to select scenes in varying amounts. So depending on what you're watching, the picture can look from good to better and then to surprisingly mediocre. However, even the worst of the DNR and EE is never severe enough to call the transfer a disaster.