I somehow doubt “Where we are, death is not!” is going to catch fire quite as much as “Are you not entertained?!”
My college housing dept. put me in touch with my future roommate and I offered to bring a wee lil’ TV with a built-in DVD player. I wanted to endear myself to this dude, so I rattled off the usual suspects of cool flicks I’d be bringing. Stuff like The Matrix, Fight Club, Lebowski, Holy Grail, Dumb & Dumber, and Gladiator. You know, shit most people dig, and he mostly approved, save for Ridley Scott’s Best Picture winner. He was less than impressed by that resurrective swords and sandals epic, but I’ve always had a soft spot for R&R (Russell and Ridley)’s simplistic but rousing Roman revenge actioner. It’s a film which shouldn’t even be as good as it is, but every facet was just a bit stronger than you’d expect from such a long-dormant subgenre. The writing was deeper, the direction robust, and the characters memorable, particularly that of the hero and villain turns, respectively. It also had a rhythmic sweep which made the 2 ½ hr. runtime fly by. No such luck this time around. Ridley’s unnecessary sequel feels like a full season of TV made by a 2nd tier cable network crammed into a single sitting and the result is scattered, underdeveloped, uninvolving, and worst of all, boring.
Much has already been made about Mescal’s inability to measure up to Crowe’s tragic, tortured general who became a slave who became – oh, you know the rest! He’s not terrible, just generic, like the rest of the movie. Phoenix’s cruel, pervy emperor came off as both petulant AND dangerous, but the pasty, imperial duo of gingers glowering from their balcony are just plain petulant and nothing more. The early film economically found the time to explore Maximus’ plight, the Roman Senate’s covert maneuvering, Phoenix’s incestuous lustings and, returning after her stint in probably the least interesting thread of the original, Connie Nielsen’s romantic pinings. Oh, and Derek Jakobi is also back, ‘cause why not? Here, every plot turn takes ages to roll out and there’s a severe lack of focus. Pascal’s character could be excised entirely to make way for more of Washington’s ambitious, decadent gladiatorial purveyor and the big reveal of Mescal’s heritage is not only obvious, but irrelevant to the point of flabby, dramatic filler. There's a massive army just idly waiting for a war? Fuck are they doing? Slashing papyrus a la Caligula?
Even with all these problems, one would at least expect Scott to dream up some exciting arena set pieces, but a reliance on poorly rendered CG and ho-hum recreations of maritime battles do little to up the ante. Small continuity errors like Mescal’s chin suddenly being clean after bloodily chomping down on a terrible-looking digital monkey or shoddy logic like the escaped gladiators managing to avoid pursuit and even take the time for an inspiring speech reveal Scott’s sluggish, even indifferent filmmaking. Initially unfolding at a stately pace, the OTHER G2 (the good G2 being Gremlins 2) peters out into tedium before the halfway mark. I’d say I’m disappointed, but this didn’t need to be made in the first place, so why waste time running my hand across the windy wheat fields of mediocrity?
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