Gladiator II: Let the games resume!

Gladiator II (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong, bloody violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Although the lengthy gap between this film and director Ridley Scott’s predecessor seems an eyebrow lift, scripters David Scarpa and Peter Craig cleverly work that passage of time into their plot.

 

Although Lucius (Paul Mescal) isn't expected to survive his first bout in the Coliseum,
he proves unexpectedly resourceful ... much to the delight of the crowd, which has
long thirsted for a new champion.

Fifteen years have passed since Russell Crowe’s Maximus Decimus Meridius hoped, with his dying breath, that Rome would return to the honorably glory that it had enjoyed under the rule of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. 

Alas, things didn’t turn out that way; Rome has come under the rule of sadistic twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). They’re reckless, with no sense of history, and believe in chaos, violence and conquest for its own sake. Their Roman Empire exists solely to expand its borders, pillaging every culture in its path, and forcing survivors to fight for their lives in the Colosseum.

 

Their realm’s citizens are in a very, very bad way. Rome has failed its people; Geta and Caracalla couldn’t care less. They’re vain, decadent, hedonistic and quite mad; Geta is a diabolical schemer, while Caracalla — never without his beloved pet monkey, Dundus — is completely unhinged.

 

Quinn and Hechinger plunge into these roles with unrestrained enthusiasm, making the twin emperors flat-out scary, unpredictable and detestable.

 

The story begins as their favorite warrior, Gen. Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), leads the Roman navy across the sea to conquer the coastal realm of Numidia, where Lucius (Paul Mescal) farms with his beloved wife, Arishat (Yuval Gonen). 

 

(Viewers with good memories will recognize the name Lucius.)

 

He and Arishat join the forces protecting their walled city, in a jaw-dropping action sequence orchestrated by Scott, production designer Arthur Max, special effects supervisor Neil Corbould, visual effects supervisor Mark Bakowski, and supervising sound editors Matthew Collinge and Danny Sheehan.

 

The melee lasts almost 20 minutes, with a barrage of battle galleons, swords, bows, knives, catapults, trebuchets, flaming projectiles and what seems like thousands of warriors. It’s awesome.

 

Alas, things doesn’t go well for Lucius. He and the other male Numidian survivors are carted to a rigorous — and deadly — gladiator training camp run by the formidable Viggo (Lior Raz, who has a marvelous scowl). 

 

Tolkien: Not entirely Hobbit-forming

Tolkien (2019) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, for war violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.10.19

Aside from outliers such as Ernest Hemingway and Stephen King, most writers lead rather ordinary lives.

And what they do — crafting humble words into mesmerizing stories, generally in isolation — is hardly the stuff of engaging cinema.

Surrounded by the notes and illutrations that he feverishly sketches while playfully
creating entirely new languages, John Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) nonetheless cannot shake
the feeling of not really belonging in his highbrow Oxford surroundings.

That said, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s back-story is more provocative than most.

Director Dome Karukoski’s Tolkien hits the myriad heartbreaking high points of Tolkien’s youth and young adulthood, and star Nicholas Hoult persuasively conveys the curiosity, intelligence, facility with languages, and almost magical gift for storytelling that later would inform his literary career.

David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford’s sensitive script clearly is well-intentioned, and Karukoski’s touch is sincere.

And yet…

The pace is dreadfully slow, and the decision to employ Tolkien’s horrific World War I experiences as a framing device is questionable, to say the least. We’re apparently expected to recognize that this is the devastating Battle of the Somme; context for this portion of the film is utterly absent. Every so often, Karukoski drags us back for another grim interlude, as Tolkien wanders through the body-strewn trenches in a daze, under the watchful gaze of a young private (Craig Roberts) who worries that his companion is about to drop dead.

The apparent point of these sequences is that the disoriented Tolkien — suffering from an acute case of debilitating trench fever — hallucinates the battle carnage into symbolic smoke- and shadow-laden warriors and monsters that later will inform the mythic creatures he concocts for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Well … no.

It’s a clumsy, contrived device that simply becomes tedious as the film proceeds. It’s also superfluous; we’ve already seen that young Tolkien was inspired by his mother, Mabel (Laura Donnelly), who — as a means of distracting her two young sons from their “impecunious” existence — excels at spinning fantastical narrative adventures with the aid of a slowly spinning shadow lamp festooned with magical patterns. This sequence is far more magical — and persuasively credible — than the repeated bounces back to the trenches.

Tomb Raider: Stylish thrills, chills and spills

Tomb Raider (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and breif profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.16.18

Most big-screen adaptations of video games have been an eye-rolling waste of time, but Lara Croft always had an advantage: She was created, back in 1996, as the kick-ass female answer to Indiana Jones ... and we all know how well that franchise turned out.

Having run afoul of some young Hong Kong thugs determined to rob her, Lara (Alicia
Vikander) evades pursuit in the most flamboyant manner at hand.

Lara is similarly alive and well, in her newest cinema outing. Alicia Vikander is perfect for the part — radiating intelligence, spunk, resourcefulness and the never-say-die stamina of the Energizer Bunny — and this film should please both fans and mainstream newcomers. Norwegian director Roar Uthaug has delivered a rip-snortin’ adventure with just enough back-story and character development to mildly stretch the acting chops of a cast that treats this popcorn nonsense with respect.

Indeed, it’s marvelous to note that the current generation of upper-echelon Hollywood talent is willing to swing between serious fare and light-hearted thrills. Jennifer Lawrence continues to honor her X-Men and Hunger Games roots; Viola Davis popped up in Suicide Squad; Eddie Redmayne has embraced the Harry Potter franchise; and now Vikander has become the new Lara Croft. They’re all Oscar winners, and more power to them.

Just as every generation seems to need a new and youthful Spider-Man, Lara has been re-imagined not quite a generation after Angelina Jolie first donned the boots, shorts and tank top back in 2001 and ’03. Vikander adds a playful sparkle to the role — Jolie, good as she was, always felt a bit too grim — and this film’s script touches all the essential franchise ingredients.

We must remember that Lara is a tragic heroine, and Vikander deftly handles that duality. Lara’s cheerful exterior can’t quite mask the pain behind her eyes; as this story opens, her beloved father, Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West), has been missing for seven years. He had a habit of swanning off on unspecified “missions” that had little to do with the stuffy corporate stuff typical of his public face; he never returned from the last one.

Refusing to believe him dead, resisting entreaties from Croft Holdings solicitor Yaffe (Derek Jacobi) and business executive Ana Miller (Kristin Scott Thomas) to accept the corporate control that would make her financially secure, Lara instead lives hand-to-mouth as an underpaid East London bike courier. This position certainly sharpens her reflexes; it also leads to the film’s first way-cool action sequence, in the form of a captivating bicycle race assembled slickly by editors Stuart Baird, Tom Harrison-Read and Michael Tronick.

Murder on the Orient Express: A misdemeanor offense

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and rather harshly, for brief violence and mild dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Many actors long to play Hamlet.

Others look forward to taking a crack at Hercule Poirot.

When an avalanche delays the London-bound Orient Express, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth
Branagh) is in the perfect position to solve a heinous murder ... because the killer still
must be somewhere on the train.

Kenneth Branagh is a marvelous Poirot. He nails Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian private detective: from the meticulous OCD tendencies — stroking his perfectly coifed mustache, sizing up the comparative height of his twin breakfast soft-boiled eggs — to the narrowed gaze and waspish tone that indicate crime scene analysis undertaken by his “little grey cells.”

Branagh definitely deserves placement alongside David Suchet and Albert Finney, as cinema’s greatest Poirots.

Alas, the same cannot be said for the vehicle in which Branagh’s Poirot inhabits. Screenwriter Michael Green’s attempt to turn Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express “relevant” for modern viewers makes a shambles of her ingeniously plotted 1934 novel. His adaptation commits the cardinal sin of telegraphing the twist so early, that he gives away the game before we’re even halfway through the film.

Green was an odd choice for this assignment. He’s into excess and exploitation: a sci-fi/horror guy whose credits include Green Lantern, Logan, Alien: Covenant and television’s Gotham and American Gods. He obviously lacks the subtlety and sly British wit required of a Christie mystery, which demands the touch of somebody like Peter Morgan (The Queen, television’s The Crown) or Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey and his own marvelous Christie pastiche, 2001’s Gosford Park).

Green struggles mightily to transform this story into an action-oriented adventure akin to director Guy Ritchie’s recent re-boots of Sherlock Holmes, and it simply doesn’t work. Murder on the Orient Express is a mostly tranquil drawing-room mystery ... except that it takes place aboard a train.

Branagh also directs, and succumbs overmuch to long tracking shots and other visual flourishes, which further diminish the story at hand. One sequence, inexplicably shot from above the characters’ heads as they enter a train compartment, is incredibly distracting.

Branagh seems to love the camera trickery made possible by contemporary CGI effects, and misses no opportunity for stunning vistas of the eponymous train, as it navigates the mountainous regions from Here to There: undeniably gorgeous, as is Haris Zambarloukos’ cinematography ... but rather beside the point.

The story takes place in 1934. Green opens the film with a droll prologue that hasn’t a thing to do with Christie, but nonetheless deftly establishes everything we need to know about Poirot. A last-minute change of plans interrupts an intended vacation in Istanbul, and prompts him to board the lavish Orient Express en route to London via Italy, Switzerland and France.

Cinderella: Dreams do come true

Cinderella (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for mild dramatic tension
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.13.15

Doubts notwithstanding — and I had plenty — Disney has done a respectable job, with this live-action update of its own 1950 animated classic.

Ella (Lily James, left), surprised to learn that invitations to the upcoming palace ball will be
extended to every maiden in the realm, wonders how she might escape her stepmother's
clutches, in order to attend. For their part, stepsisters Drisella (Sophie McShera, center)
and Anastasia (Holliday Grainger) immediately vow to win the prince's hand in marriage.

Kenneth Branagh’s presence in the director’s chair certainly helps; it stands to reason that the Irish Renaissance man who brought Shakespearean regality to 2011’s Thor could grant (let’s be candid) a fairy-tale trifle with the same degree of dramatic heft.

In lesser hands, Thor could have sunk beneath the weight of its laughably pompous dialogue and overwrought premise ... but no, Branagh gave it class. He does the same here, with this fresh interpretation of Cinderella.

To be sure, he had able assistance, starting with a solid script from writer/director Chris Weitz, still best known for his 2002 adaptation of Nick Hornby’s About a Boy. Weitz’s take on Cinderella is a little bit Grimm (as in Brothers) and a little bit Disney, with a soupçon of modern feminist sparkle. The resulting narrative is appropriately cheerful, poignant, bleak and swooningly romantic, as needs must.

With respect to the latter, wait until you catch Cinderella’s arrival at the Prince’s ball: Rarely has a character been afforded so splendid an entrance, and rarely has a director milked a scene with such unapologetic oomph.

Which brings us to this film’s young star: Lily James, who makes a flawless Cinderella. She’s eminently believable as an unassuming country lass, albeit one who’s well-read and possesses the perceptive wit of a Jane Austen heroine. At the same time, James “cleans up” marvelously, when a bit of Fairy Godmothering transforms ash-begrimed Cinder-Ella into a breathtaking vision who transfixes all in her presence.

James has a natural ingenuousness that Branagh employs to full effect: the sort of sweet sincerity that Christopher Reeve brought to Superman, when he spoke of fighting for “truth, justice and the American way.” Nobody laughed when Reeve delivered that iconic line; well, nobody laughs here either, when James’ Ella — recalling a promise made years back, to her mother — resolutely insists on facing the world with “courage ... and kindness.”

Pronounced just like that, with a slight pause between the two attributes. Again, the sort of statement that, if delivered even the slightest bit wrong, would prompt snickers from our oh-so-sophisticated 21st century audiences.

Trust me: No laughter erupted during Monday evening’s preview screening (at least, not at that particular moment). Indeed, the audience lapped it up. It would appear that Disney’s current run of “princess power” has yet to subside.