Revealing mistake: After the final fight scene, where Maximus is dead and on his back in the sand, his armour would have made his head droop horribly backwards. To avoid that, the filming crew put a pillow of sand under his head to raise it about three inches. (02:20:10)
Revealing mistake: As Maximus approached his home after he should have been killed, the grain fields clearly show marks which are only caused by a tractor during crop spraying. (00:42:00)
Revealing mistake: In the beginning of the film at the major fight sequence. When you see the Romans shield themselves with the rectangular shields against the barbarian's arrows and then they charge at each other. If you look closely enough, you can see two Roman soldiers standing there having a great laugh, one pointing a sword smiling, and the other one staring at the ground laughing to his heart's delight. (00:09:15)
Revealing mistake: When Lucilla takes her hand and closes Maximus's eyes after he dies you can clearly see him blink. (02:19:55)
Revealing mistake: As the last man is killed during the Battle of Carthage, you can see that he actually doesn't get stabbed. The sword hits the ground beside him. Furthermore, he doesn't bleed at all. (01:24:35)
Revealing mistake: When Maximus quickly kills all his opponents, the third to last man he kills of the group of men, when he stabs him in the stomach, you can clearly see him "stab" to the side of his stomach. Even more visible when you slow it down. (01:04:20)
Revealing mistake: After the first battle in the Colosseum (The Battle of Carthage), Commodus decides to meet "The Spaniard" in the arena. When Quintus (the head of the Praetorian Guard) is telling the slaves to drop their weapons, we can see one of the spectators hiding a plastic bottle of water (right upper corner of the screen). (01:25:58)
Revealing mistake: As Tigris lays injured on the floor of the Colosseum, there are several close-ups of Maximus holding the axe above his head, with light streaming in around him. There are two things wrong with this; First of all, the camera angle is nowhere near steep enough to see the top of the Colesseum, therefore no light rays. Secondly, the top of the set can actually be seen between the light rays, as the canvas shades are too short and wide to be those seen in the CG wide-shots. Use the DVD "Making Of" as reference. (01:43:20)
Revealing mistake: Near the end of the movie, when Commodus and Maximus are in close, struggling for the knife, take a good look at the knife. Both of the actors' hands are gripping it and it's clearly rubber because it's bent at a serious angle. (02:16:30)
Revealing mistake: After Maximus is dead, if you look at his neck, you can see his pulse. (02:19:15)
Revealing mistake: In the scene where the Praetorians attacks the gladiator's quarters and the gladiators are forced to fight in order to hide Maximus' escape, Hagen is shot full of arrows. Note the blocky silhouette of his torso area? What kind of padding is he wearing under that canvas jerkin? (02:07:10)
Revealing mistake: When Maximus charges his cavalry against the Germanians in the first battle, he decapitates a Germanian standing in front of a tree. In the side-on shot of this, the Germanian is obviously a mannequin, as when the head comes off, so does the wig on top of it. (00:09:40)
Revealing mistake: When the chariot crashes in to the gladiators, we can see the shield in which the chariot crashes in to. It's not shaped like the other shields which are shaped in a perfect bow. This shield is rectangular shaped most likely to balance better on what ever is supporting it when the chariot runs over it making the chariot tip over. (01:30:00)
Revealing mistake: After the first gladiator fight when Maximus and Juba have finished off the last gladiator, it cuts to a wide shot of the arena. The camera moves to the left, if you look at the back row you can see two men with modern day T-shirts talking. (00:55:45)
Revealing mistake: After Hagen has been shot and stabbed, as he falls dying to the ground, the pad the arrows are attached to on his back is quite noticeable under his shirt. (02:07:15)
Revealing mistake: In the "Battle of Cartage" when the first of the chariots is turned over, right after Maximus is saying "Hold, hold...down low, down low," there is a series of shots to the crowd, there is a bearded man celebrating with both arms, and deep to his right (left on the screen) there's another man, wearing some kind of clothes with stripes black and white. Behind him, there is an old man who appears very briefly, and he's wearing glasses. (01:25:50)
Revealing mistake: During the gladiator battle where Maximus is fighting gladiators alone, there is a particular shot with the gladiator he recently sliced up the stomach on. First Maximus hits him in the face, and you can see blood gutter up from the ground instead of from his face. Then when it cuts to Maximus stabbing him, blood gutters from behind Maximus, when in fact the gladiator is standing in front of him. (01:04:20)
Revealing mistake: In the shot after the Germanian leader get stabbed to death there is a Roman soldier and his horse falling to the ground. Look at the soldiers around him. They are moving unnaturally fast, like they are in fast forward. (00:10:35)
Revealing mistake: In the Moroccan prison the iron bars are electric arc welded. As a blacksmith, I can easily spot the visual differences between electric arc welding (a modern technique) and pierced bar joinery such as the Romans would have used.
Revealing mistake: When the firesquad has executed the two prisoners it cuts to a closeup of Lucilla. Later when it's time for Maximus to fight Commodus the exact closeup shot of Lucilla is being used over again. (Extended version only). (01:47:15 - 02:29:10)
Chosen answer: You're probably closest with the suggestion that they're rather stunned at the sheer speed with which Maximus has carved through the opposition. They'd certainly be used to more of a show, so for Maximus to slay all his challengers in less than a minute would take them aback. If anything, the "Are you not entertained" is closer to the theatrics that they'd really expect to see, which would prompt them into cheering him - up to that point, he's not exactly won their favour, even though he's defeated all comers.
Tailkinker ★