I thought it was ok for a distraction, not awesome though. The cinematography and acting were pretty good.
I would agree, too long. Movies these days, I don’t understand why they have to be like 2 1/2 or 3 hours.
For this, at least I can say I could follow who all the characters were. Unlike a lot of these historical type films. Some of the plot points were a little silly …. Spoiler maybe:
Like Gladiator dude just giving the ring to the doctor to deliver to the army. That’s enough for them to march the whole army to Rome? And then Denzel, knowing what’s gonna happen, just rides his horse all the way out to the front lines. And, there’s no big army battle. Just old Denzel fighting a ripped Gladiator dude who’s like 40 years younger than he was … who dispatched him in a couple of seconds. The Tyson/Paul fight was better than that.
That was kind of a “who gives a [shirt]” ending in my opinion.
And while the animal CGI wasn’t awful, I also don’t think it was very good. The rhino and the sharks look super fake to me. The rhino in Ace Ventura 2 looked more realistic.
Oh, and
The Emperor cut-off-head scene. That looked extremely fake, & how much screen time they gave that was ridiculous. My buddy said — when they do a scene like that, they have to have it up for like a few frames. Denzel spinning that absurd head around to everyone was downright hilarious.
