I saw Gladiator 2. I had no intention of seeing it but my dad mentioned going to see it and I couldn't say no to that. I'll preface this and say I didn't have high hopes and expected wokeness throughout.
Overall, I enjoyed the film. It's not as tight as the first one which I watched again recently, but it is enjoyable and the characters were good/decent enough. Denzel is not the emperor as first assumed, but his character has good development (probably the best). There's quite a few actors from the original in small scenes and it tied in well.
Action is fine. Not as good as the original in my view but it was exciting enough. It felt like the political aspect was the most important thing in this film but I enjoyed that at the end.
For the woke aspects I only noticed a few things. A female soldier who's girl power moment ended poorly (as one would expect in real life). It lasts for moments and didn't detract. There's a line about Romans stealing land (in Africa, lulz). There's a black roman soldier at one point. Just one. My history may be wrong, but I doubt this was accurate. Then there's a line about Rome being a refuge for all that seemed iffy. That said, theres one key plot aspect that I can't believe made it through. Spoiler, but a former slave who wants revenge gets dunked on and the views of his old white master win. Don't know how that made it in.
All in all, decent movie. Maybe not theater worthy but I enjoyed it despite zero interest.
I am thoroughly sick of Pedro Pascal in everything.
He was already ruining Mandalorian before it completely went to shit.
You doubt correctly. If there was even a single black Roman Legionnaire in the immediate post Aurelius era(when the first film is set), I'll eat a whole roasted dog. There really should be such a thing as a crime against history.
I turned it off as soon as I saw stronk empowered wahmen at the start. There is no way her death motivated the protagonist the way Marcus Aurelius was motivated by the death of his family.
Her death makes him angry. He's captured after this and it's just a small narrative piece about why he wants to kill Pedro.
Aurelius was murdered by his family, so that would be a good trick…
I saw a review by Disparu, I think, and he pointed out the character's wife was the only female soldier and targeting the general directly, so they kill her in battle. It's kind of an expected thing, which makes the guy being mad about it weird.
Also I'm kinda irritated they retconned the dude to be Maximus' son. It's not necessary.
I think Gladiator II, is Ridley Scott writing the original Gladiator story he wanted to tell, without the studio interference and constant rewrites
Its amazing the kind of shlock Hollywood makes now. 10 years ago this shit would be straight to DVD but now..its a "blockbuster"
What’s with people here suddenly trying to convince us that obvious Hollywood/AAA slop isn’t slop? Fuck off lol
Our expectations have dropped precipitously. So we can deal with a certain amount of slop.
how was the CGIs? from the trailer it looked pretty video gamey level of "realism".
I didn't really think about it, so I guess it wasn't that bad?
What put me off is that it's basically the Temu version of the first movie, like Force Awakens was the Temu Version of A New Hope. Including the whole "main character from first movie failed and their legacy went to shit pretty quick".
I watched it too last week. Was OK, not as good as first.
Aside from everything mentioned in this thread, for me, most disappointing thing was the pacing.
Was good at the beginning, like the original. Slowly opens up. Builds world.
But very early on it just let's everything out. No mystery. Exposition rapid fire, and bad use of flashbacks just thrown in. Dramatic moments not given the time it deserved for impact.
Just felt like it was trying to cram two movies into one. And this movie itself was pretty long. Like 2:40 or something