Gladiator

DVD Details: Anamorphic Widescreen Audio Tracks: English, Commentary Track Subtitles: English (DD 5.1, DTS 6.1) A 2nd disc of supplements (see below) R, 155 minutes

Gladiator is one of the few original rehashes to come out of Hollywood lately. (I stand by my assertion that Hollywood hasn't had a single original idea for years now) They haven't done old Roman days in quite a while, so there is some real room to improve on the whole gladiatorial combat stuff. And improve they did. Fighting, Lions, Blood, more Fighting, Swords, Chains, Blood, Fighting, Combat, Battle, Dying, more Fighting, and yes even some Blood are what Gladiator is all about. Well, that's not quite true. There is a good story about a General who loses all he has and is forced into the Gladiator business. A really nice movie, it's good to see that DreamWorks saw that the demand on DVD, and decided to make this a good Special Edition.

2 Disc sets are becoming more and more common, especially for real Special Editions. While it's true that you could make 2 discs from any movie, and just put a trailer and some storyboards or something on the second one, the real Special Editions are putting a lot on that second disc. As they should. The Gladiator DVD is actually given the title "Signature Selection", although I'm not sure how this is better than "Special Edition" or "5-Star Editon". It has a print of Ridley Scott's signature on it, I guess that means he had to approve the whole thing. It doesn't really matter to me what they call it, it doesn't even have to have any special title at all. Maybe some people only buy things that have same fancy name on them, but that doesn't mean anything anymore. Calling it a "Special Edition" is only as tough as getting the cover guy to put that at the top of the DVD cover. If they had something like "Luke Approved!" where Luke (me) was brought in to review the DVD before it came out, I could be a nice unbiased seal of approval for the DVDs out there. Then it would actually mean something.

Oh well, on to the review. The DVD has great picture and sound, although a very small number of hairs or print damage were visible, but not enough to detract from the movie. Sometimes I wonder why anything gets through, I guess it would take a while to look at every frame after the transfer, and then clean them all up. Oh well, there's nothing to complain about with this particular disc, so I think I'll move on.

The extras start on the first disc, wthi a nice commentary by Ridley Scott. A lot of different areas are discussed, and it's a generally good commentary. Not too many pauses, and none for too long. But there are so many more extras that I think I'll start on them here. First off are 11 deleted scenes from the movie, all with optional commentary by Ridley Scott. Very nice, although it would've been nice to have these on the first disc so that they could be watched in line with the rest of the movie. A minor issue, and not too important. There is an extra "Deleted Scene" called The Treasure Chest, which is actually a montage of a lot of removed scenes from the movie. Usually just a few seconds a piece, the inclusion of all these, being set to music from the movie, brings the home viewer a nice look at what else was filmed but not used. And weighing in at just over 7 minutes long, not a small number of scenes either.

There are two featurettes on this second disc as well. The first is a quick run through of the movie, each Act being focused on individually, with a lot of the actors and people involved using the words "great, brilliant, wonderful, etc". Generally a pretty entertaining "making of" look at Gladiator, my only recommendation is to not watch this before you watch the movie, because most of the plot is given away during the featurette's 24 minutes. The other featurette is I guess supposed to be a more informative look at the actual Gladiator Games, and at the times in which the movie is set. It does a pretty good job, but it was obviously made specifically to promote the movie. The first half hour is pretty informative, but towards the end you start seeing more footage from the movie. For a 50 minute featurette, this was definitely more informative than the first, but it still managed to give away enough of the plot to make this a post-movie event. The final featurette focuses exclusively on Hans Zimmer, the man behind the music of Gladiator. I found this the most interesting of any of the things on the second disc, probably because it didn't have the usual fluff, and was extremely focused on one aspect of the movie.

Also on this disc is a very unusual extra. The "my gladiator journal" extra is literally the journal of the main child actor Spencer Treat Clark. A somewhat interesting read, it's a lot more personal than any of the other documented production notes I've read. He writes of goofing around on the set, doing homework, movie making, and a whole host of things. There are even some pictures from his various activities, quite an interesting extra in my opinion. The storyboards on the disc are pretty good, although most of the "conceptual art" is only a picture or two. I have my doubts that this was all the work that was done, I'm guessing it was all thrown together at the last minute to bump up the number of extras. The stills gallery is more interesting, and very extensive with 180+ images. The standard trailers and tv spots are on this disc, but curiously all the TV spots are combined into one video segment. No way to watch the second one without going through the first. Curious, but not a big issue.

The cast and crew information is the usual, and the same goes for the production notes. Nice reads, but not special enough to mention anymore than that. What I grow most weary of are Hidden extras that are not mentioned, but exist. I suppose these Easter eggs are fun to put in, but sometimes I wish they were more obvious. There are two I will mention, both exist on the supplemental disc, and you start on the second screen of Special Features. By going to Trailers and TV spots, and then pressing left you will highlight the emblem on Richard Hariss' costume. By pressing enter, you will see a Chicken Run trailer with an obvious Gladiator theme. Very cute, although unfortunately hidden (I suppose hiding it is nearly appropriate, since it's not a trailer for Gladiator, but I've seen lots of discs with trailers for other movies, sooo...) The other extra is found in the storyboards section, under Deleted Scenes. The rhino fight brings up the first storyboard, and if you hit up you will find that the rhino in the middle of the screen is higlighted and leads to a special menu. From here you can read the scene, view some test footage (very cool) or go back and look at the storyboards. It makes no sense to me why they would hide this. But they have. But now you know, so it's all good.

To wrap up this review I want to mention the packaging. You may have seen the DVD at the store and wondered how they got two discs in the regular case. Well there's actually a flap that holds the other disc, and while it can move freely, the disc doesn't fall off or move too much. I suppose I should mention the nice menus on the first disc. All animated, with an animated Scene Index (my favorite), and nice themed music and introduction. I want to praise DreamWorks for allowing the opening DreamWorks movie to be skipped, so you don't have to watch the moon man if you don't want to. Very very nice.

So overall, a great great DVD and a great great movie. I think this DVD is at least as popular as the Matrix, and I can understand why. Probably everyone who bought it didn't realize they were getting such a good DVD. I hope DreamWorks doesn't drop the ball when they put their next blockbuster on DVD. I would definitely look forward to getting a DVD like this every few months, and I'm sure the rest of the DVD community would too. Don't miss this DVD!