The posters give a good indication of what to expect: no blatant, oiled-up display of muscle but a looming dark shot of Russell Crowe, the star, in sepia which manages because of the heavy shadows to look ominous. Ridley Scott, the director, has given us a dark-edged epic - not exactly Blade Runner Does The Roman Empire, but with the same fatalism underlying it. Crowe is Maximus (I was going to write 'plays', but no, Crowe IS Maximus), a Roman general longing, despite his great successes, to pack it all in and retire to his country villa where the wife and son he hasn't seen for nearly three years are awaiting his return. He wants to be a farmer. But the current Emperor, Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) thinks he should be the next Emperor instead. Commodus, Marcus Aurelius's son, is desperate for power and Aurelius has always dreamed of restoring the Republic (all this bit's actually historically accurate, bar the fact that Commodus and Maximus are invented characters). Maximus is going to be the guy who will restore power to the Senate and abdicate. Maximus, despite his own wishes, is about to agree when Commodus scotches the entire plan by murdering his father and ordering Maximus killed. Maximus survives (of course) and makes it home too late - he's kidnapped and sold into slavery. End of Act One. Act Two is the Maximus-becomes-a-gladiator bit, in Africa, with Oliver Reed as his owner - God, I've never seen anyone look that leathery, not even men twice his age who work in the sun every day! With a shock of white hair, Reed had the most amazing face at the end, as if it had literally been marinated in whisky and then tanned for hours every day. Probably had. Act Three is the return to Rome, the fights in the Colosseum, the confrontation with Commodus... all good traditional epic stuff, and yet very moving. I wept buckets at the end and even left my raincoat in the cinema, stumbling out a tear-sodden wreck.

And this was despite the flaws. Joaquin Phoenix, as Commodus, looks distinctly odd, a fact compounded by Scott's insistence on shooting him in half-shadow most of the time. The inside shots with him are almost always bleached of colour, lit by torches; Phoenix, who's white enough already, looks positively Gothic at times. He's put on weight and bulk for the part and it's sent his jaw completely out of proportion. Very odd. Still, he does a good creepy Roman tyrant and has obviously been watching reruns of 'I, Claudius' to get into the swing of things.

And for the accent. The whole accent question was a big problem. Crowe's character is constantly referred to as 'The Spaniard': OK, but why's he called Maximus, then, instead of.... I dunno, Joaquin? I read in an interview that Crowe wanted to do a Spanish accent, a la Antonio Banderas, but Scott wouldn't let him, so Crowe opted for what he called a "Royal Shakespeare Company accent taken down a few notches". Well, a lot of Australian slipped in there too. Superb as Crowe was, the effort of having someone called 'The Spaniard' talking Strine sometimes grated on me. And Commodus's sister Lucilla, played very well by Connie Nielsen, (remember her from The Devil's Advocate?) had the same Italian accent here as she had in that film. Then there was a German gladiator with a German accent. Somehow a character whose accent actually corresponded to his nationality was the most confusing thing of all.

Another quibble: how the hell did Maximus get from Germany (where the assassination attempt took place) to Spain (one presumes) where his villa was, so fast? And who was it that was waiting for him at his villa to kidnap him? Everyone thought he was dead. I don't think it was the normal practice of slave traders to hang around deserted houses on the offchance that someone who would fetch a good price at market might be popping in after a few weeks. Plus, the biggie: the penalty for selling a Roman citizen into slavery was pretty scary. If Maximus (despite being Spanish) was a citizen, how come he wasn't freed as soon as they realised who he was? And if he wasn't, how could he be Emperor?

Minor stuff, though. Crowe was simply perfect, utterly believable. The fight scenes were breathtaking, though two of the big set-pieces - one with tigers, one with chariots, both in the Colosseum arena -- went by too quickly. I don't know if this was the fault of the computer-generated SFX, but both of them felt rushed. I wanted to savour them longer. And that's another thing: Scott plays perfectly with our awful, corrupt desire to see people being slaughtered. The fights and the kills feel real and nasty. "Are you not entertained?" shouts Maximus at an arenaful of people, after having dispatched five guys at the speed of light, and yeah, we are, but we wanted him to take longer, string him out a bit... exactly as Proximus recommends. Go see Gladiator immediately. But take plenty of tissues.

Lots of stripped-down men but most of them die so fast you can't get a good look at them. Crowe went for the 'real' body rather than a gym one, and he looks magnificently solid. Still, Scott hasn't gone for the beefcake option. You admire Maximus rather than wanting to have sex with him. Honestly. And Phoenix has completely lost those boyish good looks which made him so weirdly charming in 'To Die For'. There's a pretty little six-year old though (Lucilla's son) who'll be worth keeping an eye out for in about 10 years' time -- that's legal, isn't it?