Ridley rarely disappoints, and Denzel always inspires confidence! I also heard they're bringing back Jacobi as Gracchus, so that's a plus for sure! But I'll still have to wait and see hehe. It's set during Severan times, like Caracalla era, which I enjoy. Least Gladiator moved the timeline up a bit compared to every other Hollywood Roman Empire flick that's ever been made. They always seem stuck in the Civil War chasing after Shakespeare on that, or else mired in that trope where Rome has to somehow become Christian by the end of the movie, no matter what the year. Like OK we get it. The first Gladiator did that last part too at the end, cause they all do, but at least it was handled somewhat more tactfully than the usual fare. Armchair producers would probably have asked that the first one be set during the Julio-Claudian era too, except that then someone had to explain to them that the Colosseum needed to exist in order for the plot to make sense, and then they backed off on it hehe. Like otherwise we'd probably just get Quo Vadis or Ben-Hur or Spartacus or Cleopatra all over again. In recent years the shows have been somewhat better than the features. HBO's Rome was a standout in the aughts obviously. Domina on MGM was pretty excellent for a more recent outing, like once Kasia comes into her own in the role of Livia Augusta. On the whole though I'm always surprised that they never go back a generation to set up the Civil War in a more interesting way. Everyone knows the Plutarch and Suetonius riffs by now, all the big names like Caesar and Pompey and Brutus etc, which peeps remember from the famous play. The only time I've seen Sulla or heard mention of Marius though, was in that one made for TV miniseries on TNT, where they had the crazy brother from Six Feet Under playing Caesar. In that one Peter O'Toole had a pretty great Sulla death scene, but we just never get much background there. I feel like they could mine Sallust a bit more for that one, and probably come up with a cool angle that wouldn't be quite so familiar. Later Era Roman empire stuff is pretty well serviced by the various Vikings or Britannia type shows, which tend to play up the fantastical elements, but I just always find the juxtaposition of early Christianity vs Pagan Rome a bit grating. I much prefer it when the Empresses are still scratching their hexes and defixiones on lead lamella and calling down the wrath of the old gods. If it's a gotta be a trope-tactular, I enjoy that stuff. Like Titus Pullo praying to Mars and his gladius, after mowing down a bunch of bandits. That was solid gold! Or when Caesar gets his triumph and they actually painted his face red for it, I appreciated those things in HBO. Atia was the best character by far! I thought we'd probably get a Julia Domna riff on that of some sort for the new Gladiator, but the IMDB casting call didn't have any shoe-ins. Pretty sure it'll just be Lucilla again for the audience to have something to hold onto. Of course I'm contractually obligated to watch every single one of these flicks when they come out and then scrutinize them in over-exacting detail, just cause Classics undergrad - predictably lol. I'm pretty excited about it though.
I still enjoy the formula here and all the tropes, honestly. It'll be a real tall order to top that opener from 2000. I don't even mean the battle. I'm talking about that first 1 minute and 45 seconds coming off the title sequence. Just masterfully executed!
