Gladiator 2 - anyone else looking forward to?

[tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz]

Just watching the original. Such. An. Incredible. Film.

Dodgy CGI aside it's just so good. I watch it every year and still cry at "Go to them " at the end .

Booed tickets for the new one and have told myself not to compare just try to enjoy it as a stand alone film.

Anyone else?

And good lord. RC is just so immensely fit in it

Has she?? What, was she playing Philippa Langley or something? I must have missed that.

(I was surprised at how much I missed her, given that while I think she’s an astonishing actress, I also really like Emily Mortimer..)

Yes she was in The Lost King - 2022. She was fab in it.

For me it wasn't camp enough to be a good fun romp along watch as I'd heard but also just a bit flat compared to the epic affairs you expected from Ridley Scott almost like it couldn't commit to either so sat on the fence.

I think it's perhaps a sad reflection of cinema in general now.

I thought one of the emperors looked so much like Joaquin phoenix that I’d missed the plot in the first one where commodus had had twins - anyone else!?

I thought it was gorier than the first one and had to look away a lot which meant I missed a couple of important-to-plotline deaths.

i liked the story though! Nice to see Lucilla more developed as a character and also a female character who is more than a love interest or mother.

I love the cheesiness of the first and am always surprised that it affects me so much - with the second, I just felt completely unbothered.

DW was great but PM is so dull. It sounded as if he was trying really hard to make his voice have any power, but seemed as if he was stretching the whole time. (Continuity issues too as scenes that had been redone/edited in clearly showed that he'd given up on his training by then!)

The Weasley Emperor twins were dire - desperately trying to be up there with Phoenix, but incredibly derivative.

So many plot holes and inconsistencies (not just the newspaper in a cafe) - I don't mind that if it's great otherwise, but the boringness of it all meant that those became a focus.

Weasley Emperor twins

Joaquin Phoenix was incredible in the first ... quietly terrifying. And you almost feel for him when his father rejects him at the start.

There was no subtlety in the performances in this one.

You're absolutely right - nothing subtle at all!

He was pure brilliance! And so was RC, they were perfectly cast.

I loved it! PM, PP and DW were all brilliant! The first film was better, no doubt, but I haven’t seen it for so long it’s just a distant memory for me. Maybe that’s the trick - don’t rewatch the first one and then you’ll enjoy the second one more.

It wasn't as bad as I feared but it didn't make much sense. How did the twins end up being emperors? How come Denzel didn't get to have a heartbreaking speech explaining his motivation? I have loads more but don't want to do spoilers.
Joachim Phoenix made the first film. He's an all time great bad guy.

Agree with JP ... when I first watched Gladiator I was early 20s and while a film fan already and loved it RCs brooding masculine all round general hotness was the pull factor.

Now I'm an old gimmer I can still appeal his hotness and to be fair to the guy, an excellent actor performance but JP is so so good in it. And avoids the panto villain effect the twins have in the new one.

I sometime wonder if his career trajectory would have been different if his brother hadn't died so tragically. I think if opportunities were equal he possibly could have outshone him still.

DW has a lot of charisma and charm and he seemed to be enjoying himself. PM was fine. He was a little inclined to swap accents, but that's not really a problem in an epic where all the quotations on the walls are in English. The inherent problem with the whole thing for me was that you're supposed to be rooting for PM but DW just outshone him.

but that's not really a problem in an epic where all the quotations on the walls are in English.

//

Ha! Yes that was funny

Agree Denzel was absolutely magnificent. The guy can literally do no wrong. Love him

Good acting and good acting in a epic are different things. RC in Gladiator is a fine example of epic acting. Daniel Day-Lewis in Last of the Mohicans is probably the absolute gold standard.

I am shallow though and really fancied RC then!

But yes agree with you, I meant more that as I, ahem, have matured, I look beyond how fit he was in it and can appreciate that whilst not performance of a lifetime he was still very good.

DH and I saw it last night. The Ed Sheeran twins and Matt Lucas were hilarious. I thought the costumes were gorgeous. It was a bit daft and extremely gory but I generally thought it was a good film. How crap was Arishat's breastplate though that it couldn't stand up to one arrow?!

I love Gladiator One but have little desire to see this because Paul Mescal. I’m not entirely sure what it is about him but I find him duller than dry dirt. Love a bit of Denzel so when it comes to streaming i’ll probably watch it just for him.