Gladiator

Rating:
Summary: A Great Read into the Thoughts of each Character.
Review: Either read this book first, then see the movie or see the movie first, then read the book. I saw the movie Gladiator 3 times before I read the book, and each time I had seen the movie, I saw something new. After I read the book Gladiator, I saw the movie 2 more times. In My Opinion, the book Gladiator is a great read if you want to learn alittle more about the characters. It also gave me a better view of what each of the characters were thinking in each scene. Some of the parts of this book filled some of the gaps, that the movie didn't show. Also, the dialogue in the book was very helpful for me when I saw the movie again, because there were some words and sentences I had missed while watching the movie. This book is just as powerful as the movie, because it explains every scene with the same details, if not more. It gives me alittle more aspect of Maximus as a Warrior, General, Husband, Father and Friend, which is one of the reasons that I really enjoyed reading this book and seeing the movie.

Rating:
Summary: Where's the epic?
Review: I really wanted this book to be great. The fact that a movie like this one, with such scope and depth and beauty and struggle, was novelized in less than 250 pages, should have been a serious clue to me that I was wanting too much. This book is little more than a transcript; it is exactly, scene-for-scene, the movie (including the deleted scenes). Yet the writer fails to keep the reader in second-century Rome because 21st-century American phraseology continually creeps into his descriptions: "whipped to a frenzy," "cheering his head off," etc. Even some of the dialog has been "updated" for today's audience, including some of the most memorable movie lines: "The Emperor has been slain" becomes "The Emperor was murdered," and "Is this not why you are here?" is reduced to "Is this not why you came?" Converting "we shall" to "we'll" is simply insulting to the reader who loves this movie's sense of setting. Besides (and more importantly than) this, Mr. Gram writes with a choppy style that remains in third person objective for most of the story, rarely peeking into characters' minds and, therefore, never finding their hearts. The characters of this movie deserve a book that is rich both in historical detail and in emotional depth, but instead they got this, an ultra-quick read that reveals absolutely nothing new. The second star I gave it is for Maximus, because even when reduced to this level of shallowness, I still love him. The third star is for the first several chapters, which give sufficient detail of the opening battle sequence and even seem to promise a bit of character depth. After Marcus Aurelius's demise, however, the book's tentative promises and the author's writing skills die along with him.

Rating:
Summary: A Great movie and a great book to follow.
Review: This book is just as it is in the blockbuster that did welll at the box-office! A great writer who knows how to keep the pages turning! it even has movie scenes!