Gladiator goes nowhere new, but touches all the summer action blockbuster bases with style and force. Russell Crowe is perfectly cast as megahero Roman general/gladiator Maximus, and it's hard to imagine anyone else doing a better job with the role. There are no weak links in the cast; Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, and Connie Nielsen all earn the screen minutes they take away from or share with Crowe, and Joaquim Phoenix is suitably whiny as the unworthy son and imperial successor to Harris's Marcus Aurelius. But the improbable escapes and impossible feats required by action blockbuster formulas puncture the picture's pretensions to historical relevance, as does the agonizing imperative that our stereotypical grizzled hero who just wants to retire and go home to wifey be drawn back in, and this time it's personal. The preview for The Patriot lays out the exact same movie, with the imperiled American republic substituting for Gladiator's ahistorical Rome. We know who has to live and who has to die and who has to win and when, yet Scott manages to generate a little suspense and adrenaline along the way. The fight scenes, particularly in the opening setpiece of war in Germania, are brutal and breathtaking, if more computer-generated than choreographed. In sum Crowe's brute charisma and Scott's visual mastery allow Gladiator to outclass its box-office rivals, but not to rise up out of screenplay-by-numbers Hollywood studio billions-or-bust necessity.