Gladiator II

Maximus Carnage

Gladiator II
aka GladIIator
Directed by Ridley Scott
UK/USA 2024
Paramount Pictures
UK Cinema Release Print.

Warning: Very small spoilers.

I really wasn’t expecting much from Gladiator II (or GLADIIATOR, as the actual film print reads) as I didn’t think too much of the first movie when it hit cinemas. For me, the first Gladiator had some nicely staged battles and a fantastic score by Hans Zimmer. Those were the two standouts for me... other than that, it was an okay movie, not a great one. So I really wasn’t expecting much from this sequel which, honestly... did anyone want a sequel to a movie where the title character, Maximus, died at the end... thus going a good way to negating any attempt at a possible follow on.

Well, I have to say that, although Gladiator II is a completely unnecessary follow up, I actually preferred it a lot more to the first film. I mean, it’s still not a great film but, yeah, it kept me entertained for much longer and, despite running for two and a half hours, it didn’t really drag either (I thought the first one did drag, somewhat, it has to be said).

This one is, in terms of story content, a kind of toned down remake of the first movie where, this time, it’s Lucius, the grown up son of Maximus, played here by Paul Mescal, who is captured after his wife is killed by his mother’s new husband. Said husband, Marcus Acacius, is played by Pedro Pascal but he’s not really a villain and he plays the character sympathetically. Lucius goes about conquering the new games devised by two Caligula-like ruling emperors (who are essentially the main villains, for a bit), with the intention of taking his revenge on Acacius but there’s more to it than that. Denzel Washington plays the guy in charge of the Gladiatorial school, so to speak and he wants to use Lucius to rise up for his own political ends. Washington is amazing in this, as is the returning Connie Nielson as Lucilla.

There are political conspiracies paced with, frankly, somewhat over the top Colosseum games which include... I dunno... some kind of genetically altered killer ape/dog creatures and a flooded arena filled with sharks. Um, I assume there are going to be one or two accusations levelled at director Ridley Scott that he’s jumped the shark with this movie, for sure. That being said, although the action sequences are maybe not quite as consistently engaging as the first film, they still work very well and the quieter scenes where violence suddenly intrudes into the narrative have positively Japanese levels of arterial spray (well, more like arterial floods) and certainly liven up those moments considerably.

But, I don’t really care, as escapist fantasy it’s fast moving and, well it’s Ridley Scott so, whatever you may think of his movies post-1982 (after his three masterworks The Duellists, A L I E N and Blade Runner, reviewed here), you know that the cinematography is going to be nothing less than stunning so, yeah, no surprises there (and he seems to be using the different qualities of image tone between the two films for the flashbacks as the very thing which makes them feel like a window to the past). What did surprise me was the last combat scene in the film as I didn’t expect to see a certain character turning out to be the real villian until about half an hour before the end (I thought he would become an ally)

And as an added bonus, we get a score by one of Zimmer’s stable, the great Harry Gregson-Williams, who of course gave us the incredible score to Wonder Woman. And yes, Gladiator II is on CD and this was the real motivating factor that dragged me into cinemas to see (well, hear) this thing and, on the music front, I was not disappointed. I can’t wait to hear this thing as a stand alone listen, for sure. It does have a fair few nods to Zimmer’s leitmotif on occasion (although not the Holst derivative, from what I could hear) but it does its own thing and has some nice orchestration.

So yeah, I think that’s me done with Gladiator II other than to acknowledge that Derek Jacobi’s returning character feels somewhat wasted, Connie Nielson is the absolute glue which holds the film (and the story, to an extent) together and I didn’t even mind the tongue-in-cheek ‘I Am Spartacus’ moment after the Coliseum sea battle scene. Definitely worth seeing this one at a cinema if you can spare the time.

Infinite

The
Regeneration
Game

Infinite
Paramount USA  2021
Directed by Antoine Fuqua

Warning: Plot spoilers, I guess.

Infinite is a new science fiction action adventure based on a relatively new novel, The Reincarnationist Papers, by D. Eric Maikranz. Now, this information surprised me because the story is very much a riff in the vein of a Philip K. Dick kind of concept and yes, it’s yet another of these recent sci-fi movies which feels like it's exploring concepts from 1950s science fiction, it seems to me. However, it’s a nice enough concept but... it’s kind of wasted the way it’s been presented here.

The Infinite of the title is the name a certain, smallish underground section of the population give to themselves. They are basically people who, from adolescence, can now recall all their past lives leading up to this point... so they don’t have to learn new skills and are pretty much experienced at everything they’ve tried their hand at for thousands of years. When they die, their soul is just reborn into another body and so on. However, the Infinites are split into two warring factions. There are the Believers... the good guys of the film who want to use their special skills to benefit mankind... and the Nihilists, the bad guys of the story who want to destroy the world so they don’t have to keep coming back in new bodies.

To this end, many years ago, the main villain Bathhurst, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor (who nearly always makes a good villain but he seems to have some truly terrible lines here... much like all his costars in this), invented an egg of destruction which, when activated, will wipe out all life on the planet. In a blistering car chase action sequence at the start of the movie we see a character, one of three Believers who die in the opening sequence, steal the destructive egg and we are told later that he has ‘hidden’ it somewhere. Why Bathhurst can’t make another one is not really made clear but, anyway, it’s up to the Nihilists to find the egg so they can destroy humanity and the Believers to find the egg to keep it hidden or, preferably, destroy it. However, nobody knows where the main action hero at the start of the movie hid it before his death.

Enter Marky Mark Wahlburg. That character has now been reborn into his character, Evan. However, he doesn’t know he’s an Infinite because of him being treated as a schizophrenic throughout his life (and the tin plate in his head doesn’t help either). However, when both factions of Infinites realise it’s him, the Believers nab him from under the noses of the Nihilists and start trying to ‘jog his memory’ about the heroic action man he really is and, more importantly, where he hid the egg.

And that’s the main set up and I won’t say much about the plot. All the actors including those just mentioned and the likes of Sophie Cookson, Dylan O’ Brien, Toby Jones, Liz Carr, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson and Jason Mantzoukas... are all pretty good. However, the dialogue they are asked to deliver in the film is, generally, not. Take the aforementioned Ejiofor, for example. We’ve seen him play a villain in numerous films and he’s always so threatening and not someone to be trifled with. Here, however, nothing much he’s saying is worth listening too and that goes for pretty much all of the other characters in this. The only redeeming moment in his character is the fact that, with the beard and black costume choices he has, he does tend to come off as a kind of knock of Roger Delgado as The Master (from the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who), so I was at least able to enjoy his performance on that level.

Another huge problem is the opening of the movie. It starts off with this truly brilliant action sequence (rendered less effective by some rubbish rap song over a lot of it) but... it’s the best set piece in the movie. It’s too strong and makes all the other action sequences in the film which follow look bad in comparison. And I’m sorry but, Marky Mark riding his bike off a really high cliff in Scotland and managing to land it on the wing of a plane which has already been in the air for two minutes really doesn’t help things. This film is definitely going for the action stakes but, as far as I’m concerned at any rate, it really fails to deliver for a lot of the time. Don’t get me wrong, the film is entertaining enough and the kicks, punches, slices and explosions are fine... they just aren’t enough to save it and, coupled with the script... yeah, I was a bit underwhelmed by the whole thing. And I still can’t figure out why a secret society would advertise their whereabouts to the enemy by flying around in aircraft with a big Möbius strip logo on the side.

What I wasn’t underwhelmed with was the action score provided by the great Harry Gregson-Williams. This was, frankly, the only reason I bothered to see the movie, it has to be said, as I'd already bought a copy of the limited edition CD release from La La Land records and I wanted to hear how it played in the movie before listening to it as a stand alone. And how it plays in the movie is... mixed way too low when it could have been way better highlighted against all the bangs and pops of the drab action sequences. But I know the CD will get a fair few spins so, at least there’s that. Thanks to the company for allowing La La Land to put this one out.

And... not much more to say about this one. The film has some nice concepts such as an electronic acupuncture machine to help stimulate memory and a gun that fires bullets which capture the souls of Infinites so they can’t resurrect again, stored in a computer chip instead but... the execution seems lousy on this one, for some reason. Things just don’t seem to be either pumped up enough or gritty enough to be consistently watchable and, yeah, well I won’t be watching Infinite again anyway, I would say. If you like sci-fi action movies then it’s not absolutely terrible and it’s not too dull a diversion of an evening. Just don’t go in expecting an epic.

Total Recall 2012

First Among Recalls

Total Recall 2012 USA 
Directed by Len Wiseman
Playing at UK cinemas now

The year was 1990.

8 years since Blade Runner came out in cinemas.

8 years since I read between 30 to 40 of Philip K. Dick’s second hand novels and short story compilations over the space of a year.

Total Recall, directed by Paul Veerhoven was released into cinemas and I was really looking forward to it because it was alleged to have been based on one of my favourite of Dick’s short stories, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. The title of the new movie bothered me though... after all, with such a great title on the short story, why couldn’t the movie just follow suit (and why call a movie Blade Runner, for that matter, when the original novel’s titles is just so darned cool? Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?).

So there I was, sitting in the cinema in 1990 with my friends and the credits on Total Recall roll and, within about 15 seconds I am absolutely furious! This is ****ing plagiarism right here. This movie is scored by Jerry Goldsmith, one of my all-time favourite composers and I just want to strangle him and never before, or since, have I actually fought this hard to not jump up in front of an audience and knock some sense in to their lack of reaction and lead them in an orderly mob to the projection room with pitchforks and lighted torches.

I look around at my friends and none of them seems particularly worried or as angry as I am and... I just can’t believe it. But I am so enraged I want to spit and stamp my feet. Jerry Goldsmith’s opening title music to Total Recall is, as anybody with half an ear could tell you, a rip off of Basil Poledouris’ opening title music, Anvil Of Crom, from the 1982 Arnold Schwarzenegger adaptation of Conan The Barbarian. I am restless and fidgety in my seat. How am I supposed to enjoy a film when it’s being all copy-cat on Schwarzenneger’s arse.

Of course, what had happened was that the films producers, or possibly director, or anyway... some idiotic suit who wouldn’t know the difference maybe... had wanted to recapture the glory of the earlier Schwarzenneger movie with this one and asked the great Jerry Goldsmith to ape the style of the Conan The Barbarian main titles... probably by way of creating a sound temp track for the movie, a practice Jerry Goldsmith always hated and never really mellowed to (especially after working with Sir Ridley Scott a couple of times, is my understanding), which included Anvil Of Crom over the rough cut.

So I can’t blame Jerry for doing his job and I’ll forgive him... but I won’t forgive the people in charge of this production for doing that to both Jerry and Basil. How awful for them both!

This major felony of artistic taste-crime was further compounded when the film decided it was only going to take the basic kernel of the idea of Dick’s story and, rather than treating it in an intelligent, witty and, frankly downright funny presentation like the writer did, instead turn it into some kind of horrible action movie with a bunch of, frankly, lame special effects (even for the time), and generally destroy all that was good and enjoyable about the original short by cloaking it in a miasma of boring, couldn’t-care-less, chase fests. It was not good and, so far, I’ve never been that tempted to take another look at it and, the few times I’ve tried to get into the score, I’ve always started seeing red and flying off the handle every time I fire up the opening title music. I just can’t get through it when that red mist of angry musical deja vu pours into my ears.

I found out just recently that one of my favourite living directors, David Cronenberg, was developing that original film for a year, attached as the director, before being dropped from the project by the producers. Apparently, he was fired for attempting to make a movie version which was fairly close and respectful to the original PKD source material... when all that the producers wanted was, and I quote, “Indiana Jones on Mars”. I think David Cronenberg’s extremely “Phildickian” inspired movie eXistenZ, which even contains some specific references to Dick’s The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch in it, if I’m remembering it right, is far superior to what the makers of Total Recall ended up with in every way possible and is a testament to Cronenberg’s ingenuity, skill and ultimately, suitability to this kind of project.

Then I heard they were “remaking” Total Recall.

That’s how they put it. Remaking Total Recall.

Not doing an adaptation of PKD’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. Which rankled me somewhat, as you can imagine.

Furthermore, I then heard that Colin Farrell had been picked up for the movie. Now I’ve never quite been able to stand Colin Farrell for very long. He was in a fairly cool movie by Spielberg, inspired by Dick’s story Minority Report, but he wasn’t in it much and that’s about as long as I can handle him for. Which is why I wasn’t all that keen in ever going to see this new incarnation, which hit the cinemas a couple of days ago over here (why are a handful of films now suddenly coming out on a Wednesday or a Monday over here at the moment?). That was until I saw the trailer for it in front of a couple of movies over the last few weeks and liked what I saw in those trailers enough to go and see this on its opening night (in the UK).

I have to be honest... it’s not so much a straight remake of the original movie, thank goodness, but it still significantly “deviates from the brief” so to speak, if that brief was indeed to make a version of We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. You still don’t get the humour of the wild, weird and varied scenarios as the company in the story tries to give the central protagonist a new memory... opening like a set of Russian dolls to reveal that the character has had many lives, all of which match the wildest inventions of the scenarios they are trying to create for him (secret agent, superhero etc., it’s been a while since I read this, obviously). However, having said that, I did rather enjoy this movie on a purely “this is a piece of modern action cinema which works quite well” kinda level and I think a lot of people would like this if they gave it half a chance...I understand lots of people in the US stayed away in droves for this. I think it will make some cash when it gets a DVD release, however.

So... there’s a couple of references to the 1990 version, at least a couple I could pick up on given my relative inexperience of the original and this will probably bring a smile to the faces of fans of the first. But, unlike both Dick’s original work and also the Schwarzenneger vehicle, this particular film is taking itself very seriously most of the way through and it lacks any real humour.

Colin Farrell’s performance is quite good and I was able to suspend my disbelief and allergic reaction to him for, just about, the full duration of the film. Can’t really fault him as an actor... just one of those personalities on screen who I personally have trouble with. He’s excellent in this, as are most people in it, and that should be good enough for me.

Jessica Biel, who is another old hand from a Philip K. Dick movie (Next, inspired by PKD’s The Golden Man) is also on hand and she does a great job here but unfortunately she’s kind of overshadowed a bit by the absolute powerhouse villainess performance put in by Kate Beckinsale in this one as Colin Farrel’s wife/baby sitter. I usually find her a bit hit and miss, although I loved her in Van Helsing and Whiteout, but in this one she really outdoes herself. It’s a real “action woman with confidence” tour-de-force and she seems to have inherited that great ability to really look like she actually could do it all in real life (Nobody could but, hey, she looks like she could, okay?).

The editing in this one is fast and furious and the emphasis really is on action. There’s not a heck of a lot of screen time with people standing around talking... it’s pretty much one big long action chase lasting roughly two hours. There’s also not a lot of let-up to the pacing but that’s just the kind of movie it is. Fortunately, although the editing is pushing through the images at a frantic rate, it’s quite competent on this one (they’re pulling back and getting better again in Hollywoodland with this kind of stuff, I think) and it’s pretty clear throughout the stacked-in-a-row action set pieces just what is going on and when. It’s very easy to comprehend the choreography of the crash, the bang and the wallop.

Harry Gregson-Williams, another composer who I find a bit hit and miss, pulls off a techno augmented score which perfectly complements the thrills on screen and hits all the right notes... all the right notes, that is, if the movie was going to be called The Total Bourne Recollection. It has to be said, the score is excellent, but one of the problems with the movie is that it does seem, in a fair few places, to be trying to capture the zeitgeist of the Jason Bourne franchise and there will be a fair few scenes in this one which might take viewers back to The Bourne Identity... which seems to be the mind echoes that this movie is trying to hit quite often. Consequently, although the score doesn’t have that strongly defined set of bass lines and melodies that the Bourne series has, the orchestration and general style of it is definitely, I suspect, trying to remind you of those films on a sub-conscious level. That being said, though, I loved this score and wish the company had chosen to release a CD of it instead of letting it wallow in some “unreleased” list.

The visual aspect of it, though, is very glossy and, for the most part, sterile in it’s big budget portrayal of a bona fide ”sci-fi thriller”. That is to say, it’s grey and white and has the feel of something like the Will Smith vehicle I, Robot or, indeed, the aforementioned Minority Report. I’m not saying this is a bad thing though... I liked it well enough and I think other people might get a kick out of it if only they’d go to the cinema and give it a try.

In summing up I’d say, don’t go expecting a faithful adaptation of either the original movie bearing this name, or indeed, Phil Dick’s original work... it’s dumbed down significantly, for sure. However, if you like futuristic action movies with lots of punching things in it and lots of bad guys who seem to be incapable of accurately aiming their weapons at the main protagonists, then you could do a lot worse than give this one a watch. Give it a gander if you’ve got nothing better to do.