No secret Ridley Scott’s recent clutch of films (not so recent, too) haven’t been living up to all the pre-release hype: NAPOLEON, HOUSE OF GUCCI, THE LAST DUEL, ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD, ALIEN: COVENANT. Scott’s become like that old joke about a surgeon whose last operation was a great success . . . other than the patient dying. Not so here, this sequel to his great hit of a quarter century back isn't even a ‘great success.’ A mishmash of Ancient Rome historical hooey, Scott in too much of a hurry to get either story or cast right. Hero manqué Paul Mescal (think Spartacus) is over-parted as the captured combatant turned stadium star, losing character interest with every pound of muscle added. Main adversary Pedro Pascal, the conflicted not-quite villain (think Brutus), unable to connect with anyone on screen scans the room looking for the nearest Exitus. It leaves Player #3 Denzel Washington foot-loose and fancy-free, stealing anything left on the table. His actual position/function in Rome's politics & society something of a blank. Things don’t start well with an unconvincing CGI battle of triremes, an omen of bad CGI effects to come.* Did no one warn Scott his flooded Colosseum battle was no Chariot Race? The main storyline, the part not cribbed from SPARTACUS/’60, charts the race to get rid of looney ‘Twin Emperors’ Caracalla & Geta*, replacing them with either a re-empowered Senate or having it swiped by Washington’s Republic-phobic sophisticate. All complicated by easy to guess secrets in lineage that the story isn’t able to support by anything Scott gets on screen. No wonder our poster makes Pascal look as if he’s on crutches.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Rule of thumb on falsifying history to fit narrative: Is it more interesting than the truth or less? Well, the twins weren’t twins; Caracalla a couple of years older than Geta; they died five years apart, Geta murdered in a power grab by older brother Caracalla while being held by their mother. Yikes!
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Have current audiences been softened into CGI acceptance by video games and all those so-called Photo-Realistic animation remakes? Does that help explain today's reliance, nay preference!, for using the often more expensive digital systems when a ‘practical’ visual solution is both less expensive and often more believable?
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