It was super disappointing but not surprising. I’ve seen enough of Ridley Scott’s work to see that he is very uneven and unfortunately usually not because he is taking big artistic swings. He has made some of the greatest films and so the exact opposite just really stands out each time.
Great director, terrible writer. Whenever he’s given more creative control is when he does his worst work.
This checks out with what Russell Crowe was saying in the interview. He doesn’t name Scott, but he was saying there were forces pushing for inserting smexy time. He rightly had things to say about that, "So you’re saying at the same time he had this relationship with his wife, he was fucking this other girl? What are you talking about? It’s crazy.”
I heard they didn’t really have a script for the first Gladiator and it turned out great.
But I think it’s a thing where if you have some actors that can contribute a lot, that kind of thing can work out. When you don’t, you get Gladiator 2. Denzel was pretty entertaining in it though, the rest of it was pretty meh. Seeing the ship battle in the Coliseum was cool, but I don’t remember what it added to the plot. In the first one the fights all added to the plot and characters.
Not that it’s the actors’ fault they aren’t supposed to be writers. But maybe the first one just worked because of dumb luck, who knows?
I don’t think that’s super fair in that I’ve never seen Ridley Scott do worse than mediocre.
On the other hand, I thought Gladiator was mediocre.
Literally jumping the shark was a bit much.
I wanted the obvious attraction between Hanno and the shark to be explored more in-depth.
That movie sucked so bad
It was so laughably awful
I went in expecting the suck and was able to enjoy it as a result.
I expected it to suck and was still surprised at how bad it was. I wasn’t even happy with Denzel’s performance and I love that guy.
I bailed on caring with the first things I learned of the sequel. I’m actually annoyed that Ridley Scott was a part of it.
Hey, his kids need to go to college too!
