Gladiator

The story plays like an absurd D&D adventure where the main hero is a 20th level fighter. He's not only good, he's a general. He's not just good, he's awe-inspiring. He's not just good, but no one stands a chance against him. He just totally dominates like a hero should. It felt good to have a movie finally (after years) where the hero just completely dominates like that. My favorite scene is where he walks out and slays eight competitors in under a minute and yells out in disgust, "Are you not entertained?"

The war scenes at the beginning are of epic proportions. Some of the filming techniques reminded me of the battle scenes in "Saving Private Ryan", with blood and debris flying everywhere.

The scenes in Rome, with clouds and sunsets over the city, have to be amongst the best computer-generated imagery I've ever seen.

Finally, there's the soundtrack. It's very airy and moving, one of the better soundtracks I've heard in a long time. The vocals sound almost like Enya, but they aren't. I looked it up afterward, it was Lisa Gerard, from Dead Can Dance, and she's extremely talented. Hans Zimmer managed the bulk of the instrumentals.

All in all, I thought this was excellent, the only downside being the writing on Commodus's role. It would have been more interesting to have a stronger bad guy.