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I'm amazed at the number of reviews that exhibit disappointment over this movie; they feel that a work of art, the original "Gladiator" has received the tomato soup treatment.
But when you accept that what we have here seems more inspired by the Italian Peplum genre of the 50s and 60s, AKA Sword-and-Sandals movies, it gets its own space; it's Peplum on steroids, spectacular, but Peplum nonetheless; look at the ending.
We should give it a proper Peplum name, "Il figlio del Gladiatore" ("The Son of Gladiator"), a classier companion to classics such as "Il figlio do Spartacus" ("The Son of Spartacus") and "I Dieci gladiatori" ("The Ten Gladiators").
As Paul Mescal as Lucius and Pedro Pascal as Acacius square off, you can almost feel the presence of Steve Reeves, Gordon Scott and Roger Browne in those short-short tunics with bulging thigh muscles and wedge-shaped torsos sorting out the Roman Empire, despite their speech being out of sync and their voices dubbed by guys more used to reading the six o'clock news.
Despite plenty of comment that "Glad II" seems to be swinging off the toga of the original, I think the main reason the first film remains superior is its spiritual quality; Peplum doesn't do spiritual, it does action. Maximus' longing for his lost family and idyllic Spanish estate permeated that earlier film. Richard Harris' ailing Marcus Aurelius also exuded a philosophical detachment that added to the effect. Maximus' wife was a tragic victim while Lucius' missus is an Amazon giving as good as she gets.
Peplum also doesn't do subtlety, but Denzel Washington as Macrinus is the breakaway from the ultra-serious protagonists around him. Not historically accurate? No problem, nothing else is either.
As for Connie Neilson as Lucilla, we marvel at how lightly the last twenty-five years rest on her. For crazy emperor research, Caracalla and Geta, no need to go back further than Jay Robinson in "Demetrius and the Gladiators".
That aside, Ridley Scott, like a Roman impresario back in 211 AD, had to up the ante in the arena. The crowds are getting jaded. Since Ridley put bums back on seats in the Coliseum in 2000, there has been much gladiator action. Ridley must have thrown the toys around when Roland Emmerich's "Those About to Die" mini-series beat him to the punch. Now the sand of the arena isn't enough, it has to be flooded. You can almost hear Ridley telling Roland that he may have the Circus Max and crocodiles, but he's got Ancient Roman LCI's (Landing Craft Infantry), baboons and the midday show featuring a gladiator riding a rhino.
"Gladiator II" is rocking the box office. So just as the ancients had to constantly be enticed by new novelties, these gladiator movies are doing the same thing to us today.
But when you accept that what we have here seems more inspired by the Italian Peplum genre of the 50s and 60s, AKA Sword-and-Sandals movies, it gets its own space; it's Peplum on steroids, spectacular, but Peplum nonetheless; look at the ending.
We should give it a proper Peplum name, "Il figlio del Gladiatore" ("The Son of Gladiator"), a classier companion to classics such as "Il figlio do Spartacus" ("The Son of Spartacus") and "I Dieci gladiatori" ("The Ten Gladiators").
As Paul Mescal as Lucius and Pedro Pascal as Acacius square off, you can almost feel the presence of Steve Reeves, Gordon Scott and Roger Browne in those short-short tunics with bulging thigh muscles and wedge-shaped torsos sorting out the Roman Empire, despite their speech being out of sync and their voices dubbed by guys more used to reading the six o'clock news.
Despite plenty of comment that "Glad II" seems to be swinging off the toga of the original, I think the main reason the first film remains superior is its spiritual quality; Peplum doesn't do spiritual, it does action. Maximus' longing for his lost family and idyllic Spanish estate permeated that earlier film. Richard Harris' ailing Marcus Aurelius also exuded a philosophical detachment that added to the effect. Maximus' wife was a tragic victim while Lucius' missus is an Amazon giving as good as she gets.
Peplum also doesn't do subtlety, but Denzel Washington as Macrinus is the breakaway from the ultra-serious protagonists around him. Not historically accurate? No problem, nothing else is either.
As for Connie Neilson as Lucilla, we marvel at how lightly the last twenty-five years rest on her. For crazy emperor research, Caracalla and Geta, no need to go back further than Jay Robinson in "Demetrius and the Gladiators".
That aside, Ridley Scott, like a Roman impresario back in 211 AD, had to up the ante in the arena. The crowds are getting jaded. Since Ridley put bums back on seats in the Coliseum in 2000, there has been much gladiator action. Ridley must have thrown the toys around when Roland Emmerich's "Those About to Die" mini-series beat him to the punch. Now the sand of the arena isn't enough, it has to be flooded. You can almost hear Ridley telling Roland that he may have the Circus Max and crocodiles, but he's got Ancient Roman LCI's (Landing Craft Infantry), baboons and the midday show featuring a gladiator riding a rhino.
"Gladiator II" is rocking the box office. So just as the ancients had to constantly be enticed by new novelties, these gladiator movies are doing the same thing to us today.
Although the filmmakers may have set out to give us the "real" Churchill, it ended up a series of vignettes. This allowed them to concentrate on events they felt were central in understanding Churchill, but seem also chosen for dramatic effect.
The danger of this approach is what happened here, that Churchill comes across as somewhat lightweight. Yes, some of it is interesting, but much of it is shallow analysis; it also has unchecked errors, gobsmackers, the series has a problem with dates.
In just the first two episodes we get Churchill sent to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1899 (it was in 1893, he'd been on the Northwest Frontier by 1899), the landings at Gallipoli on 22 April 1915 (it was famously 25 April) and the most ridiculous, Churchill in France as an officer after Gallipoli in January 1915 (it was 1916). Sadly, there are others.
I get the feeling that the series was inspired by David Reynolds' style of documentaries, which deal with its subjects in an intimate way giving the feeling that we are inside the story. But this series falls short with easy conclusions and the elimination of key events. In Episode 4 "Path to Victory", the commentators are at pains to attribute Churchill's trips to D-Day and then the crossing of the Rhine to his boyish notions of adventure and trill seeking. They seem pleased with this analysis and too much time is devoted to it.
The leap from North Africa to D-day robs the series of the chance to acknowledge Churchill's ability to see a bigger picture before anyone else. Where is Sicily and Italy, and Churchill's prescience about Soviet intentions in Eastern Europe? The war with Japan, which occasioned some of his toughest and most controversial decisions, receives scant mention.
Episode 5, "Fallen Hero", seems a good summing up as to why he lost an "unlosable" election straight after the war; the point is fairly made that his judgement, so pivotal during the war, failed him here. From there though, in Episode 6, "Curtain Call", we get his "playboy" lifestyle in the South of France, 17 years after the end of the war. For anyone new to Churchill you could be forgiven for wondering how he was ever taken seriously.
But the filmmakers were too selective. There seems a whole episode missing. What happened to the Iron Curtain speech and his second stint as PM?
The commentators vary. Some have great affection for him, while others are noticeably strident. Through the series I feel the temptation to settle for zingers downplayed Churchill's formidable intellect and his insights into history and politics uncomfortable as some of them may seem to an audience today.
The danger of this approach is what happened here, that Churchill comes across as somewhat lightweight. Yes, some of it is interesting, but much of it is shallow analysis; it also has unchecked errors, gobsmackers, the series has a problem with dates.
In just the first two episodes we get Churchill sent to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1899 (it was in 1893, he'd been on the Northwest Frontier by 1899), the landings at Gallipoli on 22 April 1915 (it was famously 25 April) and the most ridiculous, Churchill in France as an officer after Gallipoli in January 1915 (it was 1916). Sadly, there are others.
I get the feeling that the series was inspired by David Reynolds' style of documentaries, which deal with its subjects in an intimate way giving the feeling that we are inside the story. But this series falls short with easy conclusions and the elimination of key events. In Episode 4 "Path to Victory", the commentators are at pains to attribute Churchill's trips to D-Day and then the crossing of the Rhine to his boyish notions of adventure and trill seeking. They seem pleased with this analysis and too much time is devoted to it.
The leap from North Africa to D-day robs the series of the chance to acknowledge Churchill's ability to see a bigger picture before anyone else. Where is Sicily and Italy, and Churchill's prescience about Soviet intentions in Eastern Europe? The war with Japan, which occasioned some of his toughest and most controversial decisions, receives scant mention.
Episode 5, "Fallen Hero", seems a good summing up as to why he lost an "unlosable" election straight after the war; the point is fairly made that his judgement, so pivotal during the war, failed him here. From there though, in Episode 6, "Curtain Call", we get his "playboy" lifestyle in the South of France, 17 years after the end of the war. For anyone new to Churchill you could be forgiven for wondering how he was ever taken seriously.
But the filmmakers were too selective. There seems a whole episode missing. What happened to the Iron Curtain speech and his second stint as PM?
The commentators vary. Some have great affection for him, while others are noticeably strident. Through the series I feel the temptation to settle for zingers downplayed Churchill's formidable intellect and his insights into history and politics uncomfortable as some of them may seem to an audience today.
Every time I watch "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", I spend days reading and watching everything that is known about them. Did they die in that town in Bolivia or did they return and live out their lives in anonymity, and what was going on with Etta?
It's not that I don't appreciate the movie for what it is, I love it, but I get the same pull of the mystery that must have inspired William Goldman to write the screenplay.
It's a movie that has travelled easily across the decades. It's 55-years young. I still find it funny and poignant just as the filmmakers intended.
Finding out the known facts doesn't really detract from the movie. The filmmakers captured a sense of the disappearing Old West, but then gave it a totally modern vibe with a catchy soundtrack and songs, but the casting made it. Paul Newman was in early, but they churned through quite a few names before they settled on Robert Redford who looked a lot like Sundance, and brought perfect timing to the role; underreacting is often funnier than overreacting. But it wasn't a comedy; amusing bits of business were dropped when it seemed it was getting too many laughs.
However the filmmakers could not have dreamed that their homage to Butch and Sundance would make their names synonymous with male bonding, buddies, best mates, partners; two guys that despite disagreements and different personalities will take a bullet for each other.
I'm surprised more shows don't use the formula. You might get away as a loner in a sedate occupation, but for a cop; a fireman; a grunt walking point or as an outlaw on the run from a super posse, you need someone to watch your back, your 6 o'clock. Loners stand less chance. The classic example is the probable end of the real Butch and Sundance when they where trapped in that little room in San Vincente with bullets ricocheting around like a Mixmaster, Butch did the necessary with a bullet for his badly wounded buddy and then one for himself.
When you see photos of the real Belle Starr and Calamity Jane, you know that Hollywood took liberties casting beautiful actresses in the parts of those tough-looking, sharp-shooting women, but not so with Etta Place. The real Etta would have turned Stetsons and sombreros everywhere she went. And those posed studio pictures of Butch and the gang, and Sundance with Etta in her beautifully accessorised Edwardian gown could almost be their portfolio shots at Central Casting they look so right for their parts; no wonder Goldman saw a movie in the whole thing.
And there it is, the movie is now enmeshed with the real story and although we can see where it embellished the facts or departed from them altogether, it delivered exactly what it stated at the beginning: "Most of what follows is true".
It's not that I don't appreciate the movie for what it is, I love it, but I get the same pull of the mystery that must have inspired William Goldman to write the screenplay.
It's a movie that has travelled easily across the decades. It's 55-years young. I still find it funny and poignant just as the filmmakers intended.
Finding out the known facts doesn't really detract from the movie. The filmmakers captured a sense of the disappearing Old West, but then gave it a totally modern vibe with a catchy soundtrack and songs, but the casting made it. Paul Newman was in early, but they churned through quite a few names before they settled on Robert Redford who looked a lot like Sundance, and brought perfect timing to the role; underreacting is often funnier than overreacting. But it wasn't a comedy; amusing bits of business were dropped when it seemed it was getting too many laughs.
However the filmmakers could not have dreamed that their homage to Butch and Sundance would make their names synonymous with male bonding, buddies, best mates, partners; two guys that despite disagreements and different personalities will take a bullet for each other.
I'm surprised more shows don't use the formula. You might get away as a loner in a sedate occupation, but for a cop; a fireman; a grunt walking point or as an outlaw on the run from a super posse, you need someone to watch your back, your 6 o'clock. Loners stand less chance. The classic example is the probable end of the real Butch and Sundance when they where trapped in that little room in San Vincente with bullets ricocheting around like a Mixmaster, Butch did the necessary with a bullet for his badly wounded buddy and then one for himself.
When you see photos of the real Belle Starr and Calamity Jane, you know that Hollywood took liberties casting beautiful actresses in the parts of those tough-looking, sharp-shooting women, but not so with Etta Place. The real Etta would have turned Stetsons and sombreros everywhere she went. And those posed studio pictures of Butch and the gang, and Sundance with Etta in her beautifully accessorised Edwardian gown could almost be their portfolio shots at Central Casting they look so right for their parts; no wonder Goldman saw a movie in the whole thing.
And there it is, the movie is now enmeshed with the real story and although we can see where it embellished the facts or departed from them altogether, it delivered exactly what it stated at the beginning: "Most of what follows is true".