Customer Reviews

Gladiator

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Anyone who's seen the movie knows that Gladiator has a strong story and script behind it. But, when it comes to novelizations I like to see a little extra background, perhaps more character development than you can have in the film. And that's where this book is a bit of a let down. This is a straight retelling of the screenplay with a couple of scenes that didn't make the movie, which where kind of nice to see. I remember when Commodus finds that Maximus is still alive and he was lied to when he thought he was dead, his sister tells him that the legion should know that lies should not be tolerated. In the movie, nothing really comes of that, but in the book it then later goes to a good scene where Commodus oversees the execution of those who told him Maximus was dead. It's just little touches like that.

When I read a book, I want to feel like I'm experiencing something a little different than the movie. I felt that way when reading Terry Brooks novelization of The Phantom Menace or even Raymond Benson's novelization of Tomorrow Never Dies. I really didn't get that feeling with this one.

So, in short, if you go into the book expecting the movie to be expanded on, prepare to be disappointed. However, if you really enjoyed the movie's great story as is and are expecting nothing else, this is a fast, fun read.

I've seen Gladiator twice since the release on the weekend. It really is a great movie and this is a great companion piece to the book. My favorite novilizations of films are those where the author interprets what is on screen. Not something that is not there, leaving the reader wondering whether or not the author and the reader saw the same thing. But Gram stays 100% faithful to what is up there on screen. He gets every nuance and every characterization perfect. I probably could not have written it better myself. If you collect novilizations of your favorite novels you'll want to get this one.

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.

This book, although well-written, was based solely on the screenplay. Therefore, if you are looking for further insight into the minds of the characters, you may feel disappointed. However, because the movie moves at such a lightning pace, this book succeeded in clarifying things I missed or that were unclear (i.e., Roman Empire history, what SPQR stands for, etc.). I recommend it as a nice addition to seeing the movie but it would have been better if the character development went deeper than it did.

Dewey Gram has produced a readable novelization of Ridley Scott's brilliant new film "Gladiator." There are some minor dialogue differences from the film and a few extra scenes, and he doesn't go into the character's motivations as much he might, but he at least does slip in some historical details and the book is a nice substitute for the film until the VHS and DVD versions are available! It would have been useful, incidentally, to include an afterword pointing out the differences between the film's version of history and what really happened. Interested readers are directed to book I of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" which, no surprise, begins with Commodus.

GLADIATOR is a sure-fire success, both onscreen and on the page! I liked the way the book's pace catapaulted you almost scene-by-scene through the rich storyline. The color photos inside were incredible, too! They really captured Russell Crowe's best moments in the movie. Great fun, and even some informative stuff about the Roman Empire thrown in, as well. As tie-ins go, this one's a winner!

Okay! Okay! So it's a tie-in, so I have already seen the movie like 5 times! So I have went nuts and went online to buy everything Gladiator-related! Does this mean it's not a good read, or that I am not a trusted reviewer? Certainly not! Buy it. You will enjoy it! And it adds certain things sure to show up in the Editor's version of the DVD. Hint. Hint. Also, some nicely colored photos from the movie. It's worth every single cent!

Let's start with this novelization's strong points. First, it is utterly faithful to events in the film, which I've seen several times. You can almost hear the Zimmer/Gerrard soundtrack as you read it.

The book preserves a great deal of the film's energy, intensity, pace, and hits all the high points. Some of the characterization is handled with remarkable economy.

The book provides some information on Roman tactics and geography that a reader, or a viewer unfamiliar with Rome, can benefit from. It's compulsively readable, a page-turner from start to finish.

But....

(you knew I was going to say that...)

It could have and should have been more, even given the constraints of novelizing a film such as approval by Dreamworks, confidentiality, and the speed with which these books must be written.

Some of the Latin -- starting with the gladiators' battleground itself -- is inaccurate, and I'd probably quibble with some of the ways that Mr. Gram has described tactics. I've already gotten into one argument about the size of an Aurelian as opposed to a Caesarean legion, but I was pleased he got the Syrian archers.

I was fascinated by the way he handled the pyrotechnics in the first battle scene, even though I'm not sure the Romans used pitch in such a way. I know they used boiling oil. I know they used naphtha, although probably not in Germania. Okay, these are quibbles that make the experience of reading the book and watching it and arguing with friends enjoyable, and if you're not interested in details of military history, strategy, and tactics, they shouldn't get in your way.

What got in my way of truly enjoying this book was some of the language. As an earlier reviewer remarked, the book offers little in the way of additional sightlines or psychological insight into the main characters, and these are things I look for in a novelization.

And I kept "falling out of the story" because of the language. In a couple of places, Mr. Gram used metaphors that were really inappropriate for the time and place. Commodus is described as a "vampire." Okay, the Romans had such things -- striges and lamiae -- but modern usage is such that I was jarred for a moment. In another place, he compares something in Rome to something from the middle ages, abruptly throwing readers forward in time.

And he put more weight on adverbs than they are really intended to bear in trying to create an atmosphere of power or splendor: that's telling, not showing and, frankly, I put it down to the problems of writing novelizations.

Still, the author has succeeded in what has to be his greatest purpose: an accurate representation of an exciting film. (And the photos really are great.)

This book is best read (if at all)after having seen the movie, as it has nothing to offer the reader in the way of deeper knowledge concerning the story or it's characters. I believe that the author, who shows scattered signs of elegant prose at times, could have done considerably better with this screen-play adaption. The main problems are:Character background is limited, only the briefest of descriptions are utilized to provide scenery, adjectives are poorly selected and often used reiteratively, there are chapter breaks every 1 to 6 pages and there is virtually no inner-monologue. If you have ever read any decent fantasy / science fiction literature then you'll be quickly bored with this work which has been seemingly aimed at about an eighth grade drop-out level. I can only guess that the author had his hands tied by the film company when he wrote this as it could easily have been 300+ pages of quality material(which, despite the comments made above, such quality prose does occassionally surface when the author has been given his head in describing situations in the movie which occurred at a rapid pace on film).

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.