Gladiator II

I approached this movie truly trying to give it a fair change on its own by not holding and comparing it too much to its original, But this movie just pulls of a force awakens and has 80% just recycled nostalgia bait its impossible to not compare them.

It recycles quotes,plot, narratives, even very same camera shots.

And yeah,alas, the first did absolutely everything, every single aspect better to much better and most definitely story/drama character wise.

Even though tis definitely not the worst movie ever,far from.

But this movie kind of symbolize the state of current Hollywood and how much it has declined over the last few decades.

The fact so many people praising it confirms a bitter reality. Story and plot just don't matter or at least much less then it used to, people are pleased and satisfied as long they see pretty pictures and are not bored!

This movie definitely looks glorious and expensive and had a big grandeur(although some CGI looked comically fake), but it fails to have a coherent driven plot.

In the first movie every scene absolutely mattered, even during battles, characters spoke by their actions and where very consistent in how the character was portrayed,who where gratefully fleshed out

This script ( from the same writer as that abominable napoleon movie) things feel random and forced.

Also Battles feeling quite meh, nothing feels deserved or earned..

pity, as acting was well though ,all where good to great acting performances wich makes it even more of a pity the story was so weak.

I just watched the movie in a theater. It is full of entertainment battles ( although a little too much spectacularly blood ), the story line it's in the same path as the first ( you are not amazed cause you practically know what is going to happen ) with some changes here and there. Not the depth of the first one, you don't get the emotion of the firts one. The music it's not on the same level, Zimmer is a master and Gregson-Williams didn't catch that cloud. Mescal did his best (he's not Russell Crowe), and Denzel did what Denzel does, giving his character a whole other dimension. It's not bad, but you're not going feel the same way you felt after you watched The Gladiator back in 2000.

If ever a film did not need a follow up, it's Gladiator, some films are just not meant to have sequels, Gladiator is definitely one of those.

Not bad, but not good either, the main question I have, is why, why was this made, is the creative magic at Hollywood now dead, can we soon expect Titanic 3, or Halloween Junior High, film making just doesn't feel free flowing or exciting right now.

I quite liked Denzel Washington's over the top performance, it was quite fun, Sir Derek Jacobi was great for the time he was on screen.

There are two big flaw however, one it's trying to hard to compete with its superior predecessor, everything done here, was done better in the original and secondly, Paul Mescal just wasn't right for the role, he just didn't have the presence of gravitas, Crowe was totally superior in every which way.

The sharks, what can you say about those sharks, proof that this felt like a made up story, the original felt like a tale from history, this felt like it was conjured up during a drunken Saturday night.

It's worth seeing, just don't expect too much. I went on a Saturday night in Cardiff, and there were six of us in the screen, Wicked was packed.

5/10.

Visuals are stunning, sets and costumes look reach and amazing. Pedro Pascal is great in every scene, he's really selling all the emotions with such subtlety and minimalim. And that's about it what I've found good here.

Main actor is one of the huge problems, he always looks pale, like he is not really acting and has no real emotions. He was supposed to grab our hearts from scene one, however it somehow didn't happen. Film lacks some more time at the begining for the audiance to meet and fall in love with him, so that his motivations are more believeble and his story be more emotionally relatable.

Another huge issue is the story that goes everywhere, plot of Denzel Washington's character is just bizzare and bloated, diallogues are shallow in general...

I expected worse, but anyhow this movie left me feel numb...

My main issue with this film is the total lack of gravitas from Paul Mescal. Russel Crow commanded respect, on screen his presence was immense and it was easy to believe he was a leader of men. Paul Mescal just doesn't have it. He tried to hard in his talisman speeches, but they had to be carried by the music instead of his command of the screen. Even his physical presence is underwhelming, he looked like a boy pretending to be a man. The emperors also lacked a sense of real danger and tyranny. Every time there was a flash back to the original I was reminded of how poor this film was in comparison. If you were hoping for a performance anywhere close to Russel Crowe or a Mel Gibson in Braveheart you will be sorely disappointed. Without the charisma and emotional gravitas of the leading man everything else fails to deliver. Paul Mascals character was very empty, he seemed like the generic man, nothing at all to distinguish him. This movie is a textbook example of how casting will make or break a movie.