Gladiator (film)/Awesome

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• '"ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?"
• Juba, upon seeing the coliseum: "I didn't know men could build such things."
• This:

Maximus: "My name is Gladiator." [turns away] Commodus: "How dare you show your back to me! Slave, you will remove your helmet and tell me your name." Maximus: [removes helmet and faces Commodus] "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next."

• • This troper would argue that this moment is as much down to Russell Crowe's delivery of the line as it is to Joaquin Phoenix's facial expression immediately afterward: he looked like he'd seen a fucking ghost, and he may as well have under the circumstances. Superb acting all around.
• "At my signal, unleash hell."
• The second Zucchabar arena fight, where Maximus stabs a guy in the chest with two sword, then pulls both of them out and decapitates him.
  • The same fight has him kill six men in less than a minute. In a "blink or you'll miss it" moment, he takes down a helmeted gladiator by punching him in the head with his less dominant hand. Maximus is just that manly.
• Maximus dispatching all the praetorians sent to kill him.
  • "It's the frost. Sometimes it makes the blade stick". Max says this before dispatching the last praetorian.
  • Don't forget Maximus killing a mounted Praetorian by throwing a fucking sword at him from at least thirty feet away, in deep woods.
• Maximus forcing Commodus' hand backwards to stab him in the throat.... all the while bleeding to death
• "Who will help me carry him?"
• The captain of Commodus' personal guard gets his when he finally stands up to the humiliation and corruption of his ruler. Commodus has been disarmed, and he demands a sword, so the guards begin drawing their blades, only for the captain to step forward and yell "Sheathe your swords!" Then he turns to look at Commodus, and his expression says it all: Time for you to fight your own battles, you bastard.
  • What possibly makes this even more awesome is that it's actually historically accurate. The Praetorian Guard really did have a history of betraying their Emperor if/when they finally go too far, and Commudus certainly did. However, while it's historically accurate in the sense that the Praetorians were known to turn against the higher-ups if given sufficient reason to do so, it's not how the real Commodus died; he was strangled by an assassin.
• "Shadows and dust..."

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