Film Ridley Scott is making Gladiator 2

Scarecrow said:
Can you back this up with some source? They cared about ancestry, culture and social status a lot but I don’t think skin color was a big factor. At least I’ve never come across that.
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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Severan_dynasty_-_tondo.png

We have contemporaneous painting of Septimius Severus, you can decide for yourself whether he was black or not.

Sure, it's true that Romans cared most about ancestry, but they were also extremely xenophobic to cultures and races alien to them, first the Gauls and then the Germans/Parthians/Jews, so on and so forth. They did not discriminate strictly based on skin color but sub Saharan black people were so strange to them they might as well be from another planet, let alone becoming an emperor.
 
Frosty said:
Mary Beard is a good source for this.

Race is a social construct. The Roman world had a different conception of race to the modern world, whose ideas of race were created via African slavery.

The North African emperors probably would not be seen as having white European or Black African ethnicity.

The Romans were deeply racist, but in a very different sense to how we understand it today. So were the Greeks with barbarians as well.

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Thanks, will check it out.
 
Getting 4 star reviews from The Guardian and Empire magazine.

Also from another review -
If Scott’s Napoleon was about the impotence of Trump-like despots, Gladiator II is about the very real threat they pose despite their ineptitude.
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:devil:
 
Herman Toothrot said:
Irish people were Gladiators, right?
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This is correct. They were actually excellent fighters and always did the job as promised, but they had a tendency to turn up without their own weapons. They would borrow weapons from other gladiators and then, when the work was done, they would run off without returning them.
 
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The movie was.. Fine. Entertaining but not remotely close to great.
 
Thought it was good, just not as good as the original and a couple of people overacting 7.5 to 8 out of 10
 
It was OK. I expected it to be worse.

Not a movie I'd watch more than once though. First Gladiator I could watch any day.
 
Like others said, it was good. Entertaining but nothing extraordinary. That's fine.

It was The Denzel Show though.
 
I love Ridley Scott, but this was pretty awful. Easily the best made sword and sandals movie ever made by an octogenarian, but still pretty awful.
 
Ridley Scott only ever seems as good as the team he's working with. He makes shite like Prometheus and Napoleon, but perfect movies like blade runner. He's a weird one.

Reckon this is a stream job if I ever watch it.
 
Thought it was really bad. Movie making has gone down the tube . Felt really rushed and too many things going on. Terrible CGI unforgettable characters and i dont even remember what the plot was
 
Camilo said:
Ridley Scott only ever seems as good as the team he's working with. He makes shite like Prometheus and Napoleon, but perfect movies like blade runner. He's a weird one.

Reckon this is a stream job if I ever watch it.
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Perfect description
 
I was entertained, but it was a copy of the first one, although not nearly as good.

Mescal being without a shirt for half the movie was weird and quite 2005.
 
Loved it but probably in a minority. Not a patch on the first though, but that is one of the greatest.
That being said, it did bring my attention to this fantastic quote I hadn't heard before:

“The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.”
 
Camilo said:
Ridley Scott only ever seems as good as the team he's working with. He makes shite like Prometheus and Napoleon, but perfect movies like blade runner. He's a weird one.

Reckon this is a stream job if I ever watch it.
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Pretty much. He’s a world builder and a fantastically good one (possibly the best?) but it’s 50/50 whether he knows what makes a good script. Sometimes he lucks out on one ‘cos he’s always making about 3 films
 
Saw this in IMAX tonight.

In terms of the overall experience, it was what I expected. A fairly entertaining historical action film, without too much going on plotwise. I was surprised at how strong the links were towards the first one - both in terms of the actual plot being connected, and in terms of how many elements they lifted directly from it. And I have to stay it really doesn't stick the landing. The final act became a bit nonsensical with too many things not making a lot of sense.
 
Certainly an entertaining spectacle, but it wasn't particularly good. Mescal is, from what I've seen, a great actor but he's a bit miscast here and lacks the gravitas of Russell Crowe. His inspirational speeches falls a bit flat. Denzel is pretty great, and obviously has a lot of fun and he is what keeps the film afloat. Plotwise it's not great, and the dialogue is at times quite terrible. Overall about as expected. 5/10
 
Just got back from watching this, I enjoyed it, but it was really almost the same story as the first one.

How the feck did they get the sharks into Rome though? That annoyed me.
 
Big Andy said:
Just got back from watching this, I enjoyed it, but it was really almost the same story as the first one.

How the feck did they get the sharks into Rome though? That annoyed me.
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Yeah, that and the insane archery precision on display.
When Pedro Pascal was hit by like 20 arrows with not a scratch on the main character, that was a bit much.
 
The first movie had the emperor giving a thumbs up to signal mercy when it should've been a thumbs down and you're all complaining about miniscule things like sharks and rhinos.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
The first movie had the emperor giving a thumbs up to signal mercy when it should've been a thumbs down and you're all complaining about miniscule things like sharks and rhinos.
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It was clearly a Rasmus Hojlund reference. If they changed that up, people would complain about them not being true to the source material.
 
It just didn't reach anywhere near the epic of Gladiator. Sure it had some cool battles, but i won't remember much of it a month from now.
 
It was GCSE level fan fiction, completely all over the place, no idea what happened to Connie neilson but she was dreadful in it.

You can turn your brain off and somewhat enjoy it but it’s really not a good movie, it’s denzel Washington playing denzel Washington with the whole film built around that.
 
I don't think it has any real lasting power, but it's fairly entertaining as you would expect from this type of movie. it isn't doing much wrong, but I feel it's is more comparable to 300 or Spartacus than to a first Gladiator. the plot may be similar enough, but everything else is simply a level below, from the main actor and overall performances bar Denzel to the music and general effort put into everything.

it simply doesn't feel like a great or epic movie, but it's far from a bad one obviously. 6 out of 10.
 
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