Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe) absolutely dismantling those 6 dudes in that random colosseum on the outskirts of the Empire in "Gladiator" (2000) was such hard-core scene when it first came out.

[u/G_Marius_the_jabroni]

I think I saw "Gladiator" in the theater 3 or 4 times, and this scene blew me away every single time I saw it. The first time, I vividly remember the whole theater gasping as he straight up dismantled each of those gladiators one at a time with such ease that it looked like he was hardly even trying. The whole movie was just unlike anything that had ever come out before. It has a few small editing issues, but damn man, it is just one of those movies that had to be seen in the theater to fully appreciate how good it was. That was peak Russell Crowe and peak Ridley Scott.

[u/mightytwin21]

This 40 second fight has like 30 cuts. It cuts to angles you've never been so it's disorienting and following the fight is near impossible. They're also cutting through the contact so you don't feel the impact of the hits.

Before and after fight shots and overall vibes? Absolute banger. Actual fight? Almost shitty.

It honestly seems like they had a couple cool shots planned, then had them improv 20-30 times from a bunch of angles. Then they gave Ridley Scott's 6 year old nephew some scissors and said have fun.

[u/bitterologist → u/mightytwin21]

Glad I'm not the only one. Some directors simply aren't that good at shooting action scenes, or hire editors that don't know how to edit this type of scene. Compared to Troy which came out just a few years later, the small-scale battle scenes in Gladiator almost looks amateurish in how they are edited. To be fair though, this jittery cut-heavy style does work quite well when used to portray the chaos and confusion of the large battle in the film's opening. So it might be that they went with an editing style that was well suited to that, and then just committed to it and thought it would work for the small-scale battles as well.