Review: ‘Gladiator II,’ starring Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington

November 11, 2024

by Carla Hay

Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal in “Gladiator II” (Photo by Aidan Monaghan/Paramount Pictures

“Gladiator II”

Directed by Ridley Scott

Culture Representation: Taking place in the year 200, in Rome and in the African kingdom of Numidia, the action film “Gladiator II” (a sequel to 2000’s Oscar-winning “Gladiator”) features a predominantly white cast fo characters (with some black people, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Lucius, the long-lost son of Maximus Decimus Meridius (from the first “Gladiator” movie), becomes a prisoner slave of the Romans, and must fight his way to freedom, just like his father.

Culture Audience: “Gladiator II” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the first “Gladiator” movie, movie’s headliners, director Ridley Scott, and sword-and-sandal action films.

Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington in “Gladiator II” (Photo by Aidan Monaghan/Paramount Pictures)

“Gladiator II” is not as emotionally gripping as 2000’s “Gladiator,” but this action sequel delivers the expected epic battle scenes and competent acting. Shallow characters and phony-looking fight beasts are part of this predictable story. There are no real surprises in “Gladiator II,” which should satisfy viewers who don’t expect this sequel to be superior to the original “Gladiator,” which won five Oscars, including Best Picture.

Directed by Ridley Scott (who also directed 2000’s “Gladiator”) and written by David Scarpa, “Gladiator II” sticks to the same formula of “Gladiator”: The main character is enslaved as a prisoner of the Romans, and he becomes a gladiator to fight for his freedom. In “Gladiator,” the main character is a former Roman general named Maximus Decimus Meridius, played by Russell Crowe, who won an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in “Gladiator.” In “Gladiator II,” the main character is Maximus’ long-lost son Lucius (played by Paul Mescal), who is out to avenge the death of his wife, who was murdered by Romans.

“Gladiator II” begins in the year 200, which is 16 years after the death of Maximus. Lucius, who is 28 years old, has been living in the African kingdom of Numidia, where he was sent to live for his safety when he was 12 years old. Lucius was renamed Hanno, which is the name he uses for himself for most of the movie. His father figure/mentor is named Jugurtha (played by Peter Mensah), who is a brave warrior. Lucius’ wife Arishat (played by Yuval Gonen) is also a warrior.

Numidia gets invaded by Romans in a massive, hard-fought battle that Numidia loses. The Roman general who leads this battle is Marcus Acacius (played by Pedro Pascal), who is ruthless in war but has a gentle side when it comes to his wife Lucilla (played by Connie Nielsen), who is Maximus’ former lover. Marcus is Lucilla’s second husband. She was a widow in “Gladiator.” Lucilla is also the mother of Lucius. (Alfie Tempest has the role of Lucius as a 12-year-old, seen in flashbacks.)

Lucilla’s brother Commodus (played by Joaquin Phoenix in “Gladiator”) had incestuous feelings for her and was the chief villain in “Gladiator.” As seen in “Gladiator II,” there was gossip about who was the actual biological father of Lucius. After the events that took place in “Gladiator,” and there was political upheaval over who would control the Roman empire, Lucilla feared that Lucius would be murdered, so she sent him to live in Numidia.

Arishat is killed in the battle against Numidia. Lucius is devastated by her death and now has more motivation for hateful vengeance on Romans. Lucius, Jugurtha and many other Numidians are captured and sent to Rome to live as slaves. You know the rest: Lucius must become a gladiator to possibly rise through the ranks and gain his freedom.

The gladiator fights are seen as amusing entertainment for those who gather to see these bloody and brutal battles. The fraternal twin emperors who rule Rome at this time are Geta (played by Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (played by Fred Hechinger), who are stereotypically decadent and corrupt. Geta is the taller “alpha male” twin who prefers women to be his sex partners. Caracalla is the shorter “beta male” twin who seems to be sexually fluid or gay. Geta and Caracalla do a lot of smirking and pouting, but it’s fairly obvious early on in the movie that these two spoiled brothers aren’t nearly as cunning as the story’s biggest villain.

A wealthy, openly bisexual Roman businessman named Macrinus (played by Denzel Washington) takes an interest in Lucius, just like someone takes an interest in buying a star athlete for a team. It should come as no surprise that Macrinus, who has influence with Geta and Caracalla, is ruthlessly ambitious and has ulterior motives for making Lucius a “pet project.” The inevitable manipulations, betrayals and showdowns happen in a formulaic way.

“Gladiator II” is much more gruesome in its violence than “Gladiator.” There are also some scenes where the gladiators battle very fake-looking baboons and sharks. These visual effects make “Gladiator II” almost look like science fiction, which takes a lot of realism out of some of the battle scenes. Not much is shown about the relationship between Lucius and Arishat, except brief and superficial flashbacks, therefore depriving viewers of a meaningful backstory of this love relationship.

All of the cast members give solid performances and do the best that they can with dialogue that is often hollow or downright corny. Washington makes the most out of his villain role to give the movie’s standout performance. Mescal does well in the action scenes, but his Lucius/Hanno character has about as much personality as a video game character.

Most of the supporting characters have even less impactful personalities. Ravi (played by Alexander Karim) is a gladiator-turned-doctor, whose main purpose in the movie is to tend to Lucius’ injuries and listen to Lucius’ vent about Lucius’ misery and rants about getting revenge on the Romans. There’s also a caricature-like master of ceremonies (played by Matt Lucas) for the gladiator fights.

After the death of Arishat, Lucius is an embittered loner who is reluctant to accept Lucilla as his mother, because he believes that he was abandoned. There’s a “will he or won’t he forgive his mother” subplot in a half-hearted effort to give Lucilla some type of storyline, but her romantic entanglements aren’t explained adequately. The identity crisis of Lucius/Hanno is barely explored because the action scenes get the biggest priority in the movie.

As it stands, “Gladiator II” is a feast for anyone who likes to see gory fights from the Roman Empire era depicted in a movie. The movie’s costume design and production design live up to epic movie standards. But for others wanting a great story in between the battles, “Gladiator II” will leave others feeling hungry for more substance in how interpersonal relationships are portrayed in the movie.

Paramount Pictures will release “Gladiator II” in U.S. cinemas on November 22, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on December 24, 2024.

Review: ‘The Devil Conspiracy,’ starring Alice Orr-Ewing, Joe Doyle, Eveline Hall, Peter Mensah, Joe Anderson, Brian Caspe and James Faulkner

March 26, 2023

by Carla Hay

Alice Orr-Ewing in “The Devil Conspiracy” (Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films)

“The Devil Conspiracy”

Directed by Nathan Frankowski

Some language in Italian with no subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Italy, the horror film “The Devil Conspiracy” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An art historian uncovers a sinister biogenetics plot conjured up by Satanists, while the evil angel Lucifer plots his revenge on good archangel Michael.

Culture Audience: “The Devil Conspiracy” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching idiotic horror movies that are a mishmash of other movies’ concepts that use characters from Christian teachings.

Joe Anderson (below) and Peter Mensah in “The Devil Conspiracy” (Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films)

“The Devil Conspiracy” is a bombastic train wreck of a horror movie with an onslaught of bad acting and stupid scenarios. It’s a weak ripoff of ideas from Rosemary’s Baby and Legion, but with the setting in Italy, instead of New York City or Los Angeles. The movie tries to juggle two different stories that are supposed to be connected. The ends result is that “The Devil Conspiracy” doesn’t succeed at telling either story and is just a jumbled mess.

Directed by Nathan Frankowski and written by Ed Alan, “The Devil Conspiracy” shows the first story, which is a battle between the evil angel Lucifer (played by Joe Anderson) and the good archangel Michael (played by Peter Mensah), with Lucifer losing the battle. Lucifer falls from the sky. Michael then puts Lucifer in chains and says that Lucifer will be set free if Lucifer joins Michael as an ally. Lucifer refuses and says he will return as Michael’s master. legions of demons join Lucifer in hell as Lucifer plots his revenge.

“The Devil Conspiracy” then ignores this Lucifer/Michael feud for most of the movie until the last third of the film. The second story is about an art historian named Laura Milton (played by Alice Orr-Ewing), an American. She is spending a lot of time at a museum that has a very special exhibition: the shroud of Jesus Christ, also known as the Shroud of Turin. This shroud has a major role in a poorly conceived biogenetics plot development that is revealed later in the movie.

Before she goes to the museum to see this shroud, Laura meets Dr. Andre Russo (played by Andrea Scarduzio) from Turin University, and she has an awkward conversation with him. Laura pleads with Dr. Russo to reconsider her thesis. He replies, “The last thing Turin University wants to hear is a young American lecturing us on what our great Italian artists believed or didn’t believe.”

Laura then says she doesn’t believe in angels or a dark side of the afterlife. Dr. Russo says they can continue this discussion at his apartment. Laura knows exactly what he means by this invitation. And she wisely declines. It’s probably one of the few smart decisions that Laura makes, because this character is the unflattering stereotype of a horror heroine who makes some very bad decisions.

At the museum, which is crowded with people eager to see the Shroud of Turin, Laura doesn’t have a ticket, but she gets a laminated pass from a priest she knows as a professional acquaintance: Father Marconi (played by Joe Doyle), who won’t be himself for much longer. Through a series of circumstances, something happens that is already revealed in “The Devil Conspiracy” trailer: Father Marconi is murdered in the museum. Archangel Michael then immediately comes down to Earth and inhabits Father Marconi’s body, which is brought back to life with the spirit of Michael inside.

“The Devil Conspiracy” then wastes a lot of time with repetitive scenes of Laura lurking around the museum after it’s closed and seeing strange things that might look scary to her, but actually look like cheap-looking horror movie tactics. A witchy-looking woman named Liz (played by Eveline Hall) shows up occasionally, with and without some cronies, to cause some murders and other mayhem. Laura is then kidnapped and put in a glass cage in a room with three other young women who are also in glass cages: hysterical Sophia (played by Wendy Rosas), tough-looking Alina (played by Natalia Germani) and sensible Brenda (played by Victoria Chilap).

The rest of “The Devil Conspiracy” then becomes a tangled mishmash of science fiction and demonic possession that is so ridiculous and poorly explained, even the characters in the movie who are supposed to believe in what’s happening never look convinced. These characters include Dr. Laurent (played by Brian Caspe) and Cardinal Vincinia (played by James Faulkner), representing the inept way that “The Devil Conspiracy” tries to present conflicts between science and religion. The movie is also plagued with tacky-looking visual effects that are more laughable than terrifying. The film editing is atrocious and just makes the entire movie look even more scatterbrained than it already is.

And some of the soundtrack music is enough to make a viewer’s eyes roll with the corniness of it all. For example, there’s a scene where archangel Michael, while inhabiting the body of the dead Father Marconi, is listening to some songs while driving a car. The songs are INXS’s 1987 classic “Devil Inside” and Real Life’s 1983’s hit “Send Me an Angel.” Yes, really.

One of the worst things about “The Devil Conspiracy” is the very incoherent showdown scene that’s supposed to be the big climax to the movie. Apparently, “The Devil Conspiracy” filmmakers haven’t learned that throwing a bunch of low-quality visual effects into darkly lit scenes does not automatically make a movie thrilling to watch. By the end of “The Devil Conspiracy,” viewers will feel that the only convincing hell that this movie was able to conjure up was the hell of having wasted time watching this junk.

Samuel Goldwyn Films released “The Devil Conspiracy” in U.S. cinemas on January 13, 2023. The movie was released on digital and VOD on March 3, 2023.

Review: ‘Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins,’ starring Henry Golding

July 22, 2021

by Carla Hay

Henry Golding and Takehiro Hira in “Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures/Skydance)

“Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins”

Directed by Robert Schwentke

Culture Representation: Taking place in Japan and briefly in Washington state and Los Angeles, the fantasy action flick “Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins” features a predominantly Asian cast (with some white people and African Americans) portraying a heroic ancient Japanese clan called Arashikage and the story’s villains.

Culture Clash: Members of Arashikage battle against villains from a group called Cobra, who want to take over the world.

Culture Audience: Besides the obvious target audience of people who are fans of the “G.I. Joe” games and franchise, “Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching mindless action flicks that don’t offer anything new or exciting to the genre.

Peter Mensah, Iko Uwais, Haruka Abe, Henry Golding and Andrew Koji in “Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures/Skydance)

The “G.I. Joe” movies never had a reputation for being well-made action classics. “Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins” won’t do anything to change that reputation. It’s a frequently dull parade of sloppily filmed action clichés and no-talent acting by some of the movie’s cast members.

No one is expecting this movie to be an Oscar-caliber film. But there should be a reasonable expectation that the action scenes will be memorable and exciting and the characters will be engaging. Instead, “Snake Eyes: G.I . Joe Origins” (directed by Robert Schwentke) follows the same, lazy formula of forgettable B-movies about people who use martial arts skills in battles of good versus evil. B-movies have just a small fraction of the reported $88 million production budget that “Snake Eyes” had, but in many ways, “Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins” doesn’t look like money well-spent.

The movie opens with an origin story cliché of a male hero in an action movie: He becomes an orphan as a child. It’s 20 years ago, in a heavily wooded area of Washington state, where a young Snake Eyes (played by Max Archibald), who’s about 11 or 12 years old and apparently doesn’t have a regular name, and his unnamed father (played by Steven Allerick) are hiding in the woods. Snake Eyes’ father doesn’t want to alarm his son, so he makes it look like they’re on some kind of adventure. (Snake Eyes’ mother is not seen or mentioned in the story.)

Father and son go to a safe house, where Snake Eyes’ father tells Snake Eyes to lock himself into a room. “Do not move, no matter what happens.” But something does happen: A ruthless villain named Mr. Augustine (played by Samuel Finzi) shows up with two thugs. Mr. Augustin rolls a pair of dice, which each end face up with a “number one”, also known as a “snake eyes” total.

Mr. Augustine and his goons rough up the father, and Snake Eyes runs out of the room to come to his father’s defense. Snake Eyes’ father is shot and killed, and Snake Eyes runs away into the woods. Before Mr. Augustine and his henchmen leave, they burn down the house.

Twenty years later, Snake Eyes (played by Henry Golding) is (cliché alert) an emotionally damaged loner living on the edge of society. He’s a drifter somewhere on the West Coast of the United States. Snake Eyes has made it his mission in life to find his father’s murderer, and kill him for revenge. Snake Eyes apparently doesn’t do much else with his life but get into brawls with strangers.

In this particular moment when viewers first see the adult Snake Eyes, he is in a brutal fight with several men, and he’s able to take on all of them, even though he’s outnumbered. (Get used to this type of unrealistic spectacle, because this movie has a lot of them.) There’s someone who’s watching this fight who’s very impressed with Snake Eyes’ fighting skills. His name is Kenta Takanura (played by Takehiro Hira), who recruits Snake Eyes to work for him. “I could use a guy like you,” Kenta tells Snake Eyes.

The next thing you know, Snake Eyes is at the Port of Los Angeles four weeks later. He’s at a warehouse filled with an all-male crew of workers who are hiding guns in large gutted fish. Snake Eyes gets suspicious over this obvious illegal activity, so Kenta tests Snake Eyes to see what kind of loyalty he has. Kenta orders Snake Eyes to shoot and kill Kenta’s cousin Tommy (played by Andrew Koji), who is also a worker at the warehouse, but Snake Eyes refuses to do it.

Instead, Snake Eyes and Tommy fight off several men in the warehouse, and the two escape by trying to drive off in a truck. However, the warehouse workers, who apparently are secret ninjas too, attack the truck by plunging several swords through the truck’s roof and windows while Snake Eyes and Tommy are inside. Apparently, none of these ninja villains thought to use the swords on the truck’s tires.

This is the type of ridiculous fight scene that litters “Snake Eyes” with mind-numbing repetition of the heroes getting out of seemingly “impossible” situations, even though they’re outnumbered and surrounded. Cops from the Los Angeles Police Department show up at the scene of the truck attack, but then the movie inexplicably cuts to Snake Eyes waking up on a luxury private plane with Tommy.

What happened after the cops showed up? Was anyone arrested? The movie doesn’t reveal any of that information, so viewers will have to assume that everything worked out for Tommy and Snake Eyes, because now they’re hanging out on a private plane as if they’re jetset adventurers. The plane is not a ramshackle aircraft: It’s first-class, with luxury amenities and staffed with attractive female flight attendants. Who’s paying for all it?

Snake Eyes is about to find out. The plane is headed to Japan, where Tommy reveals that he’s a member of a heroic ancient Japanese clan called Arashikage. Tommy is grateful that Snake Eyes saved his life, so he invites Snake Eyes to consider joining Arashikage. The leader of Arashikage is Himiko (played by Eri Ishida), a no-nonsense and traditional elderly woman who will decide if Snake Eyes can become a member of the clan.

And you know what that means: More busy-looking, logic-defying fights so that Snake Eyes can prove his worth. He has to complete three different “challenges of the warrior” before Himiko can approve Snake Eyes to Arashikage. Not surprisingly, the third and final challenge is supposed to be the hardest.

“Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins” is one of the worst-lit and wobbliest action movies you might see in recent memory. For a movie that’s not set in outer space or a location underneath the ground, the lighting is way too dark in many scenes, even when the scenes are during the day. Maybe all this dark lighting and shaky camera work (from cinematographer Bojan Bazelli) are so viewers won’t notice how mediocre the fight choreography is.

One of the few scenes in the movie that’s well-lit is at a visually striking location where there are hundreds of lighted Japanese lamps on display. It’s one of the best set designs for this overall unimpressive movie. Good set designs are wasted though when the story isn’t written well. Evan Spiliotopoulos, Anna Waterhouse and Joe Shrapnel wrote the screenplay for “Snake Eyes: G.I . Joe Origins.”

All of the movie’s characters, including Snake Eyes, are very generic. The actors are stuck with playing two-dimensional characters, with only Snake Eyes having anything that can be called a backstory. This is a pure action film: There are no distracting love stories or even a hint that these characters have personal lives. Kenta and Tommy are cousins who’ve become enemies, but their family dynamics and family history are mostly ignored in the movie.

Other characters who interact with Snake Eyes include three people who are tasked with supervising Snake Eyes in his challenges: Blind Master (played by Peter Mensah), Hard Master (played by Iko Uwais) and Akiki (played by Haruka Abe), who is Arashikage’s head of security. Akiki is skeptical of a lot of Snake Eyes’ abilities and belief, so Akiki and Snakes inevitably disagree with each other. It’s a bit of a stretch to describe their conflicts as “personality conflicts,” because you have to have a personality in the first place, and these characters have none.

Samara Weaving plays an Arashikage ally called Scarlett, but she’s not in the movie as much as a lot of viewers might think she is. There’s a female villain called Baroness (played by Úrsula Corberó), who displays the stiffest acting out of all the principal cast members. It’s hard to take a villain seriously when the person playing the villain has acting that’s so bad, it’s a distraction. Instead of the Baroness, she should’ve been called the Boringness.

And what about Snake Eyes’ quest to avenge the death of his father? The movie doesn’t forget about that. This revenge subplot is handled in a very predictable way, if you know before watching “Snake Eyes” that it’s been rated a family-friendly movie for people over the age of 12. The most obvous sign that the movie doesn’t too heavy with any violence is because there’s a lot of fighting with swords and other weapons, but there’s hardly any blood in sight.

A few of the fight scenes end too abruptly, which are signs of careless screenwriting and editing. For example, there’s a scene where Snake Eyes is trapped somewhere with attackers, and someone in Arashikage swoops in to come to his rescue. But viewers never get to see the rescue. Instead, the next scene just cuts to Snake Eyes and his rescuer back at Arashikage headquarters, as if nothing happened.

The movie makes a half-hearted attempt to throw in a few surprise curveballs, by showing one or two characters who have “fluid alliances.” But it just comes across as phony and not the shocking twist that this movie needed to liven up this formulaic story. The characters are so underwritten that viewers won’t feel like they know any of them well enough to get a sense of what the characters want to do with their lives besides join in on a fight when needed.

And if viewers are expecting an awe-inspiring mega-weapon in the movie, forget it. There’s a glowing red gem (about the size of small vase) that has the power to make people burst into flames. For a movie that cost $88 million to make, it’s kind of pathetic that’s the best they could come up with for the story’s most-coveted deadly weapon.

The visual effects in “Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins” aren’t going to be nominated for any awards. In a film called “Snake Eyes,” there are inevitable snakes in multiple action scenes. In this movie, they’re giant anacondas. But the suspense in these scenes almost becomes laughable, when Snake Eyes closes his eyes and uses a meditation technique where the meditation energy will supposedly make the attackers peaceful and willing to back away. If you want to believe that giant anacondas can tap into an inner Zen in the middle of an attack, go right ahead.

Viewers will feel like closing their eyes for a different reason: The movie is so tedious that it could put some people to sleep. You could fall asleep in the middle of the film and still know exactly what’s going happen by the end of the film. And it does. It’s all just a set-up for a sequel.

Paramount Pictures will release “Snake Eyes: G,.I. Joe Origins” in U.S. cinemas on July 23, 2021.

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