Gladiator II: A Spectacular and Disappointing Sequel

I don't fight for power. I fight to free roam for men like them. Hi, welcome to the Real Generation Gap. I'm Rudy Ruiz. I'm Freddis Sotelius. And today we're going to be talking about Ridley Scott's Gladiator 2. So Gladiator 2 follows Hanno, aka Lucius, the boy from the first movie. He's all grown up living in Africa and after his home is conquered by the Roman Empire, he gets enslaved, forced into becoming a gladiator fighter and seeking revenge against the tyrannical Roman emperors in general. And we get basically a beat for beat kind of retelling of the first movie. I'm going to throw it to you first. I mean, I have quite a few thoughts, but I'll throw it to you first here. Well, it's a completely predictable story. You know, it's like when they made the Godfather and then Godfather 2, it was like the die was cast. So you knew that you weren't told that the slave was Lucius, all grown up, but anybody with any imagination should have easily figured that out and shame on me for not going, I know what's going on here, but I didn't do that. I just sat there and then it was revealed that he was Lucius and now his mother who had sent him away for his own safety was now married to the general that conquered Lucius's people. And because it started with a naval battle, it was like the Punic Wars. You know, they, it was, it was obvious North Africa, they were attacking Carthage, but it wasn't Carthage. It was like a smaller kingdom. You know, they had fortified walls and stone walls and stuff. Technically they should have easily beat the other guys, but, but you know how it is management and everything. Right. But that was the storyline that the Romans came to North Africa. They attacked this fortified city. They killed everybody and enslaved the ones that didn't kill. One of them was this poor guy. They killed his wife, who was a very good archer, took a bullet right in. I mean, it took an arrow right in the chest, you know, really dramatic. And there's a lot of arrows in the chest in that movie. Yes. And he saw her death. And as a result, he lost his awareness of the battle going on and they knocked him off the wall and he fell into the ocean where she was. And he had the weird nightmare and he woke up on the beach and the Romans just gathered him up. He didn't fight his way out. He was all destroyed from falling off the wall into the ocean and they gathered him up and he, he wanted revenge for the death of his wife. Now all the time, the thing that you and I weren't clear on or whatever, and I'm assuming you weren't clear on it. Did he remember that he was Lucius all that time or had he blocked that out? Like a blocking a trauma? Like were you, you know what I mean? Yeah. I took it as he knew. He just wanted to get rid of that side of his life, right? Like when his mother first, his mother had betrayed him. Yeah. And he's like, no, whoever, I don't know what you're talking about. I think he did know. He was just trying to separate that. Like he said, whatever boy you knew is dead. Right. Yeah. I couldn't be that. Now the first thing they tell you in the movie theater is turn off your phone. So we're recording right now. So, you know, I don't want this thing to ring while we're doing this. So let's see if I can get that figured out real quick here. Now here's the, here's another tricky part in the movie. They said that his mother, that she claimed that her son Lucius was from some man. Yeah. But the, the, the wink, wink, nod, nod secret was that her own brother Commodus was the father. And I thought that was a creepy detail. We didn't need to know. So in reality, Lucius could have been in, you know what I mean? Well, they said that was the rumor. One of the rumors. Yeah. Yeah. But really I guess the fact is the other reveal is that Maximus is his actual father, which I mean, I, you know, I buy it, of course it makes sense. It kind of sucks for his other family. But you know, whatever. I mean, they were together before obviously, but I don't know how that timeline works out, but yeah. Yeah. Convenient. But it was interesting to me that he put on his armor at the end. He put on his like, and he fit it, you know what I mean? Like it was like, like that was very personal body armor back then. They had to sort of make it right on you. You know, it's a Ridley Scott movie and man is it ever. Yeah. The first thing that tipped me over was the fight with the wild monkeys. And those were animated monkeys. Now the first gladiator movie was really real looking. Like everything was very, like there were humans. I didn't have any special weapons or extra strength or anything. There was nothing in there that was a little bit more. It was kind of like look pretty real. But once they had the cartoon monkeys attack them with a green screen and stuff, I was like, Oh, it's a planet of the apes. I thought it was a gladiator. Here, you know, and I, that's, that set me off badly for, I loved the naval battle in the beginning, even though I wanted the strategy to be all different, that all pissed me off. But, but once I saw the monkeys, it, it took the original movie, the fact that it was going to be like the original movie that was out, right. That was like, well, this is going to have stupid stuff in it. And then at the end of the movie, there was the same disappointment. They had the giant army that was coming to Rome to attack the, you know, the Praetorian guard and the Roman soldiers. And it was going to be like a 5,000 to 6,000 guy battle. It's going to be a pretty even battle and all that kind of stuff. And you saw this army coming and that army, and it was like the battle of Helm's deep, you know what I mean? From the two towers. And I'm like, wow, we're going to have, cause I love sword and sandal movies, right? Like the more, I'll either catapults and everything, you know, they had that in the beginning and I was ready for the big thing where, you know, his army defeats the Roman army and he becomes the emperor and all that kind of stuff. He, he like talked his way out of it. Like, what's it going to be? Everybody, peace or war. They were like, put their shit back in the shop. Like armies did this in 200 AD. Really? You know, like there would have been a couple of guys would have just started fighting anyway. Like I'm going to die today. You know, it's just all based off him being like, I am like an Aurelius Lucius, whatever Aurelius, you know, the grandson of Marcus Aurelius. But everyone is just like, oh, damn. Okay. But nobody honest people didn't read Marcus Aurelius' meditations. You know what I mean? So he would have been, he was like after Commodus, they had emperors that were emperors for like three months and then they were knocked off. Right. Like it wasn't like after Commodus, there was one guy and then, you know, because they had it where they had the two brothers who were co-emperors. And such a thing did happen in Rome where, where there were two emperors. There was like an East and West. I don't know that there were brothers. In fact, they weren't. Yeah. You know, but they did like have to divide the empire because the management was just going nuts and fighting Persia and fighting the Germanics as two different whole wars. Right. So there was such a thing, but this was weird. And they had two guys. One guy was in love with a monkey and because he was afraid of what the war would do to his monkey, he killed his brother. That's, that is the bottom of the barrel. Yeah. That's the psycho. That's the, that's worse than patricide. Worse than, you know. Yeah. That dude was, was crazy. Like clearly off, you know, and that's one thing. So, all right. I'll, I'm going to start from the top a little bit here. I kind of went everywhere. Didn't I? Yeah. The movie was fun to watch. Yeah. There were great battle scenes and great the armor on the guys on the gladiators and how they fought and everything. And they had that same like a mock sea battle in the Coliseum. Right. And of course, just like the chariot battle in the original movie, this guy becomes the general. He tells everybody what to do. One guy says, why should we? He goes, everybody follow me and listen to my order. Why should we? Yeah. Oh, he gets killed right away. You know what I mean? You went out, you're going to go, you know, well, I'm sorry, Rudy. No, no, let me, let me have it. Let's get a rational review now, you know? So, I mean, I liked it for the most part. It's good. I do think it's worth checking out. Um, right from the get go when I found out they were making this movie three, four years ago, however long that was, I immediately thought and I carried this all the way through, like why are we doing a sequel? We don't need it. The other movie is like a modern classic stands the test of time. Yeah. And just, just not like, all right, 20 years later, all or whatever, 23, 24 years later, we're going to do this and running out of franchises. Yeah. Yeah. So again, it's good. Like I would, I think it's worth watching, you know, you know, we got Thanksgiving week coming up, go check it out. It is entertaining, good action. You know, I dig the acting, but yeah, it doesn't surpass or even reach the level of the, of the first film. And I mean, part of that is it doesn't have the same emotional impact that the first one did. Right. First off we meet Maximus, he's general, we see him in battle. So we see his, his, um, warrior prowess, right. And his devotion to his Lord. Yeah. Yeah. To, to the, into, for his family. And here with Paul Mescal, who I've been, this is the first movie I've seen him in, I guess he was like a nominated actor a couple of years ago. I don't know. You know, I didn't buy him for the first little bit. I was like, Oh, there's no way this guy's the, this guy's the hero. But after a short amount of time, I was like, you got it. Yeah. He handled everything well. He handled the part well. And I think he's good. Like as the actor him, he's good. As far as the character goes though. Again, I feel like there wasn't enough emotional stakes there. Like one, yeah, we get that. He's a warrior, he's a fighter, but there's nothing telling us or showing me that he has an extra edge above all the other just normal fighters. Whereas Maximus did and they make that clear, they establish that. And then, yeah, his wife gets killed, you know? Okay. But it just doesn't hit as much as Maximus and his son. Yeah, exactly. His son, wife, you know, he goes, he finds them. It just, so yeah. All right. He wants the revenge, but it just doesn't quite hit the same way. And again, for the most part, like pretty beat for beat similar, you know? Okay. Yeah. The emperor's tyrannical, you know, he's going to go, he gets enslaved. He's going to go. Yeah. He wanted the general general. He wanted such a minor story. Yeah. He didn't have to face off on the emperor of Rome. Yeah. And the emperor of Rome didn't know him from anybody. Right. You know? And, and it was, it was that way, you know? And when you say beat for beat, yeah. In the original one, he had the two little figures that were his son and daughter, I mean, his son and wife. Right. And now he had the broken off arrow that he broke. Like he kept up the, like when, when you're captured in the slave, like that, you don't get to keep an artifact. Like they strip you naked and they hose you. You know what I mean? It was like, he kept that, managed to keep that, but better off keeping a knife. Yeah. Right. So. Yeah. I thought that was interesting when he had it later. I was like, yeah, it just has in his pockets or whatever. Right. Or maybe that was a new one. Yeah. And with the emperors, I actually would have liked to know a little bit more of where, like we, we get the title card in the beginning, it's 16 years later, everything went straight back to hell after a while. You know, the dream was lost and, but they're just kind of there and they don't have that much depth. We know that they're a psycho. They're kind of, they just seem like spoiled rats to me. Yeah. Just silly kids, just spoiled young guys that like have everything they want. Right. And have this power and they should not be in that position, but they don't have the depth that say Commodus had, you know, the, the insecurity, the wanting, the longing for his father's approval. Right. The fact that him and Maximus came up together. Yeah. His sister, all that, that he's going to kill his own father out of jealousy because he's not going to get chosen to be the emperor and then betraying his friend and everyone like there was just way more going on there with these guys. And granted, you know, I guess the changeup is then really Denzel Washington. Mac burness I think was his name. That's a whole other thing we're going to get into is really ultimately kind of the villain of the movie, you know, but yeah, it just didn't hit as hard. And one, I guess, new little conflict I did like that I thought did make it a little more interesting was with the general played by Pedro Pascal, which I love him. But man, we need to take a break from like making him the lead and everything. Give the guy a reason. Every single movie. Now I loved him ever since Narcos, you know, but give him a break. I'm just like the same thing with Denzel, but we'll get to that. Yeah. But I did like the conflict of, we come to find, you know, that he's actually over the emperor's nonsense. Like, yo, we gotta, we gotta overthrow him. This is shenanigans. He's like, I'm tired of just like losing all these soldiers for their vanity. You know, so we know that he also just isn't on the same page. The horror of war was, it was, we got to stop doing this. Good men are dying. Good. One thing is the enemy is dying, but our own good, many of our own good guys. And you know, I been saying this in reference to world war two and in one of the mash episodes the general tells the Hawkeye, he says, expect a lot of casualties. We're going to have this battle. We're going to have a thousand American casualties. And he says, then why are we doing it? What's not, that's obviously not a good plan. We're going to have a thousand casualties. Right. He says, what kind of plan is that? Yeah. You know, make a plan that doesn't include a thousand casualties. And it's the same thing here. Like, you know, the general was at the point where I don't, you know, I don't want to do this anymore. I've done it. I've done my, for the glory of Rome, for the glory of the emperors, he says, I've given you all this glory. Let me just go home and be a farmer now. Yeah. Let me just tend to my, cause we got to feed Rome. That's important too. Yeah. And I want to just do that. And they're like, Oh no, no, no. We're sending you right. Yeah. Yeah. We got to go to Persia. I got to go to India. Like we need to back out there. Yeah. We put your wife up in a good place. Don't forget that. Like, but you got to go back and we're going to throw this fight in the arena and your honor, whether you like it or not. Yeah. And he hated that. He was like, I don't want people to die in my, my, to my glory. That's a terrible thing, you know? Yeah. And you know, the conflict with then he finds out that his wife, you know, Hanno is her son and now he asked to help rescue him as well. But Hanno wants his head Hanno being Lucius, that's the name he goes by. Right. So I did think that was very much like Hannibal who was a Carthaginian because he was from Northern Africa. Right. It was like, can you think of something that's not immediately connected? Like reference? Yeah. I kind of thought that was another like cheap, you know, they had a lot of cheap stuff. Yeah. A lot of, you know, I noticed that some of the combatants were actually wearing motorcycle helmets that were just sprayed flat. Really? Yeah. I was like, well, that I know, I had that helmet, like, you know, the costumes weren't really quite as good as in the original either. You know, I was going to go back to that first, uh, I guess gladiator fight with the apes, with the, with the monkeys. And to your point, yeah. First off, when they came out, I was like, man, this is hardcore. They're not even going to pin them up against people. They're going to go against these big old apes. That'll just rip a person apart. This should be pretty violent, pretty brutal. And they weren't even, they weren't even natural looking apes that were cartoon. They were, you know, it was in that that's to your point. Yeah. The CGI in that moment did pull me out. I'm just like, oh man. Okay. We were here with the CGI animals and it, that took it a notch down. You know, I'd rather let's just go in and see the people fight hand to hand. And it immediately makes me think of the tiger scene from the first movie where there is a little compositing and CGI blended in there for sure. But they've got shots of the real thing. And he's, you know, they're using some movie magic to get them looking like he's close to these real tigers, but you know that it's an actual tiger there on film. Yeah. You know, with a little, yeah. With a little bit of, you know, augmentation with, with, um, visual effects. Other gladiators survived the monkey attack. It wasn't like he was the only one, like, you know, and they picked him like, well, he really fought good. Other guys had psycho monkeys. That was another weird moment. The way they shot that was they didn't really show anything else that was going on. It was all focused on him, which, you know, it makes sense to, to a point, right. He's our main character, but then he kills that monkey in the ends and yeah, everyone's still just standing there and guys were already done. Yeah. Most of the guys were standing around like, yeah, just waiting, waiting for him. It's a matter all out of monkeys. Yeah. So that, that was a odd kind of editing shooting choice to me, the boat battle. They did the recreation of this epic fight in the Coliseum was interesting. And that felt like it was kind of cool with the sharks, but also fell over the top. Right now we have jaws, right? Yeah. We have plenty of the apes. Now they're going to meet jaws and those sharks are really moved. Couldn't they like the guy, like a cruise missile, you know, you know, and they weren't really a factor. It's, that was a, that was another cheap thing. Yeah. You know, if they had, if they had had like one real realistic shark and it was like, you had to stay away from that a little bit or something, but they had a bunch of them. Yeah. You know, and how, how would you, first of all, you'd have to have salt water, right? The Coliseum was filled with freshwater from the aqueducts. Like they didn't bring ocean water in. So the sharks wouldn't even been able to be in that water. It just pissed me off. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, how do we like top the chariot scene from the first one? And that was cool when they smashed the boats into each other and they broke all the bars off and the guy rammed the other boat and they had the guys who could row and everything. And I did think it was cool being that I do row myself. Okay. I thought it was cool that they had the log and you drag it through the sand. You pull the log and then you push the log and then you pull the log. That looked like a bitching workout. Oh yeah. You know, but nobody had gloves. I don't understand how. And that was another thing when he had that fistfight with the guy with the gloves, with the spikes. Yeah. If you got hit one time, you'd be dead. One gut shot or that. That guy goes, Oh, you have a strong jaw. Yeah. Against a fistful of knives. Yeah. Those were like inch long spikes. No cuts, scrapes. He was good. Clint came out of there laughing out his way out. Like, you know, I showed him. I love that. He really came out like a boxer too, you know? Right. Oh yeah. I would expect it to be a little more barbaric than that, but they're over here just like having a boxing match. Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like the Tyson fight in that way. Right. I mean, that's like him versus Denzel at the end, right? Like a young dude versus the old man. Yeah. So Denzel, I did like the old man doctor though. He was a cool guy. Oh, Ravi, I think was his name. Yeah. Yeah. That was a cool part. And he, he had cool, you know, he did good stuff and you know, now see, he was like a more believable character that could be, you know what I mean? Like I've been wounded a lot. I know how to address wounds. Right. I lose a lot of guys. I save some of them. Right. He said infection kills more guys in the arena. Yeah. And he was the messenger. He was the guy that, you know, our gladiator could trust. And he said, give this message to somebody. And, and then he goes, he goes ride a horse into an army of 5,000 men, run right up to the general's tent, jumps up the horse box. And he goes, hey, check out this ring. And then the guy looks at the ring. Where did you get this? How many guesses do you need? He would have never made it for the first centuries. They would have filled him up with arrows. Right. Yeah. Right. Cause there's even a guy who's like, wait, no, you can't go there. Wait, stop. It just writes back. It was like kind of Keystone copy, pushing people, like pushing these guards, these warriors. Right. Yeah. Well, and that too, just the, again, there's a lot of, and I mean, I guess maybe this is just how it is in the day. Right. But just trusting the word of everybody, you know what I mean? Like, Hey, yeah, here's the ring. This is the son of Maximus. Oh, the grandson of Marcus Aurelius. We have to assemble 5,000 guys and attack Rome. Get all your people, by the way, the general that you're loyalty, he's dead, but trust us. And they're like, all right, sure. Let's go. Yeah. That was a lot of that transition of power right there. Right. A lot of, a lot of convenience. Yeah. Right now, all of a sudden, Lucius has this whole army. And another thing is, you know, we see in the first movie how Russell Crowe Maximus quickly becomes the leader of that group of gladiators. He's way of the slaves, right. Cause they, they recognize that, um, the tactics, you know, within him. Yeah. He knows what his leadership, you know, but here they just kind of trust, you know, independent real big monster guys, all of a, all of a sudden they're just like following his lead too. And that's the thing again, where they don't establish that. It's not like he was a wartime general. Sure. He was a soldier, but there's nothing that establishes or shows that he was, he was, he was a slave from one town that was cast in from slaves from anywhere. Right. So it wasn't like he was from their town. You know, I mean, if you had slaves from all over the world, they wouldn't even speak the same language. Right. You know what I mean? It would be impossible. There'd be some guys that were just, you know, war traumatized and they, they didn't trust anybody. Yeah. Right. Everybody would be in it for themselves and, oh man, you know, but they were all unified through the genius of Denzel Washington, who was really miscast. Now, when I say miscast, he did a really good job of playing the part. I mean, he's a terrific actor, but I felt like that, that was, that was that movie training day or something where he, he was the same guy. Like he was the guy that was training the cop and how he was training. Like it was the same guy. Like I expected to see the dog house with the money underneath the dog house. Like I expected to see that, you know, and though he did a good job, he got way too much power, way too fast, way too easy. It was like he whispered something to somebody and now he was the emperor. I mean, that Praetorian guard was real, especially in 200 AD. They were running everything. Yeah. You know, they, they were the deep state. They were the shadow government and everything. They would have never allowed something like that to happen for the, for the audience. We'll give them the background on that. He is the trainer of the gladiators. He has a gladiator school, just like in the first movie, there was a gladiator school. Well, this time they had a celebrity gladiator school teacher and he recognized Hannah, right? He, he recognized him as a great fighter. And he told him the same thing. You got to get the love of the people. And he said, I will give you an opportunity to kill the general if you do everything I say. And then when it came time to kill the general, when they were face to face on the sands of the arena, the general said, look, you know, before you kill me or whatever, just so you know, this is who you are. This is what it is. I'm your married to your mother. It has happened. That didn't happen. You know, this is all this good stuff. And I'm sorry it turned out this way. I really did love your mother. I'm sorry what happened to you. And, and he's like, I can't do it. I can't do it. And he's standing there and the Praetorian guard has to fill him full of arrows. Right. Denzel, he takes power. He, he becomes the de facto ruler, but not for long. Yeah. Not for long. Very short lived. So what happens? Well, he convinces the emperors, the one to kill the other. Yeah. Cause everyone's all mad. Now they're, they're rioting kind of, there's even a point where the guards are like launching arrows into the audience. So now in man, even if I was with all the armor and stuff, I wouldn't do that when there's a hundred people right there in front of me. Right. And they're just getting like pushed off the, they're throwing them off the wall and stuff. And you know, loading arrows takes a minute. You know what I mean? It's not an automatic, like it's not out there with AR, you know, Macrinus does get to that height very, very quickly, like a little too quick. It seems like something that in reality would be a process of years. Right. But this is days a week and he does it without really assembling his own army of any kind. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. The Praetorian guard would have never let that happen. Right. Like you would have had something that could beat the Praetorian guard and you would have in reality, you had to own and control the Praetorian guard if you were going to attempt a coup like that. Right. You know, happens real quick. It feels like he just got the position and it's like, Hey, by the way, an hour later, cause you know, then this is where they're going to execute the mother Lucilla, you know, so it turns into the one gladiator to defend her against all these guards. But you know, he lets everyone out and they have this big battle and all that. And he ends up killing the, the brother, you know, the brother emperor. So he convinces the one that seems to be who's very off his rocker, I guess is slow would be the way to put it among some other things. Yes. And yeah, he's developmentally disabled to some degree and in love with a monkey. Yeah. So convinces him that kills her. And man, I love how sly he does that to just walks into the room and just, Hey, he's going to lie and tell everybody that it was your fault and they're going to kill your monkey. All those people out there are going to get you, you know, and your brother's doing that. He's, Oh, he's always lying and doing this. He's like, yup. I don't know. Do with it what you will. Just so it is so gnarly. And of course, you know, he takes over. And I think you already mentioned this when he's having his meeting with the Senate and he's like, my first council is going to be the monkey. And everyone's like, Oh, that was my favorite moment. And then one of the Senator goes, uh, all hail the monkey. Like to break the ice on that. Right. And then the second advisor is Denzel and they have the same reaction. Yeah. And I thought that, well, well, there's like a weird racist thing. Like, I mean, like, I think he was the one too. I think it was Denzel who said, then somebody had to go like all hail Denzel. It's funny. And I, and I love the way this is covered too. And then the Emperor's like, all right, cool. I'm going to go, we're going to have a parade. And he walks away and then Denzel just goes into the middle, brings out the other dude, Joseph Quinn's head. And he's like, all right, everyone, I'm running this now. Right. I need ultimate like power or whatever. He's like, I need power. And this is what we're in order to defend Rome. Yeah. I need you guys all to acquiesce to my. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fine. Denzel is an army at the gate. You got the power. Like it's on you. Oh boy. What a God. And then when he ends up killing that poor soul, like when he, and he had to do the little like needle through the ear too. What a way to go. Man. That was like a James Bond thing. You know what I mean? Like all of a sudden like specter, right. Like, yeah. Yeah. What Rudy is talking about is that the remaining emperor is still alive with, with the monkey. And Denzel is a crowd of people having a riot in the Coliseum now. And he takes out, I don't know how many penny that nail is, but it's a pretty good, like, you know, it looked like a galvanized like something for construction, you know? Yeah. He just, he just puts it in his ear and just shoves it right into his head. Like, and then, yeah, I thought they were more like cut the throat, cut the head off kind of people. I didn't know they did. That's what I thought. Or he'd go through like the back of the head right here. Just an instant, you know? Right. Well, the Gladius, you know, that was so duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. You know? And so the two armies are at the gate, one inside, one outside, they're equally matched. And the thing that hurts me is they're they're each other. They're the same people. They're brothers. They're, they're all Romans. It's not an enemy at the gate. Yeah. It's our boys. And now they're both racing to the gate to one, one guy to lead the incoming army and one guy to stop the incoming army. And they get there. Now we're going to see David and Goliath, right? So here's the ultimate gladiator up against his teacher, Anjin San, you know, you know, sensei, whatever, you know, and they're going to have it out. And of course Denzel is, you know, older and he's not combat ready. You know, he's used to sitting around and eating grapes and stuff. Right. Yeah. And so they're going to have it out and they do. And the armies don't have to fight. And I'm missing the most exciting thing in the movie that I was like, when I saw those armies assemble in, you know, I thought it was going to be a great battle, but it wasn't. And sanity prevailed and they all lived happily. Unfortunately his mother did die. Yeah. Who was an incredible beauty. Who even after 16 years looked just as good as in the first movie. Yeah. He was now pretty much in control. Would he, I mean, he wasn't an emperor or anything, so he would return control to the Senate or something. I guess so. Yeah. Like they didn't really have a ding dong, the witch is dead thing. Yeah. You know, they missed that movie, but he didn't become the emperor. Like it wasn't all hail. Right. You know, it was just, well, we're going to work together to fix this. Yeah. So I also thought, I was like, wow, we're going to get a huge battle scene right now. I wasn't expecting that out of this movie, but here we go. Scott is built for battle. Yeah. It's gladiator too. Let's go. This is how we're going to end this thing. And then it doesn't happen, which, which I'm actually fine with. Cause I don't know. It almost makes it feel like it would have been a whole different movie in a way. But you know, of course he's going to defeat Denzel Washington and the end and that's that. And it just seems funny that he would even go hand to hand with him, that he'd get off the horse, man. All right, let's go mano a mano. And not just like guards kill this man, you know? Right. Yeah. He just went for it. Yeah. Because first of all, he killed the emperor. Yeah. That was kind of frowned upon in those days, you know, especially if you were just a guy who was like a slave trainer, but he was not a Senator. Yeah. I don't even know that he was a citizen. I think he was a freed slave, right. Who had decided to have the school. And in the first movie, the gladiator school was way better than this one. This was like a hotel compared to the original one was brutal. It was a scene out of hell that those guys went through. Ridiculous. It was a fun movie. I enjoyed watching the movie. I'm not saying don't see the movie, but they did something in the movie that was really weird. They came around the theater and there was about eight people in my theater and they gave us this, right. I guess if it's thumbs down, you got to put it on the other hand because it's like this, you know, and they gave us this thing, but this thing, I don't know what polyvinyl chloride is, but you know how they always say your carpet is poisoning you or something. This thing smelled so synthetic rubbery that I actually had to put three or four seats away because I was starting to asphyxiate, you know? And I thought if this theater was packed and they gave everybody one of these things, right. We probably would have been dead. Yeah. And that was a terrible pollution thing, you know, but it is pretty funny. I do give the movie a thumbs up. I will give it a thumbs up. And uh, but I give it a thumbs up about at, I don't know, man, four or five or six. Yeah. I'm in that five, six zone. I guess I'll just say 5.5 but they didn't give you the thing. No, no. I don't know what happened there. Yeah. Like I said at the, at the top, I do think it's worth seeing. It is a fun movie. It's got the action. It's got some drama. It's good filmmaking, you know, with the exception of some rough CGI moments, you know, good fights, good battles, cinematography, all that stuff. Like it's all good. It just, it's not any better. It's not better than the first one. You're not really lacking in story. Yeah. It's really lacking in character development and between the monkeys and the sharks and stuff. I'm not, not really believable. Period. Scenes last week rewatched the first movie in years, like over 10 years. And right after, like, it was so good and I appreciated it so much that I wanted to watch it again. Like immediately this one, I didn't leave feeling that way. As a matter of fact, I almost want to watch gladiator the first one again, like now even more so, because like, man, yeah, that movie was really good. Um, but yeah, so I'm going to say 5.5 on this. And I'll, I'll echo that. That's fair. I think that's reasonable. It was, it was interesting to compare the two, but that's, this is why we did it that way. Last week we watched the first one. This week we watched this one because we knew it was coming out and our expectations were higher, I think, because we watched the first one. Luckily for me, I came in with zero expectations. I wasn't expecting it to be at that level. So that's probably helping my case. Right. But I think a lot of people were expecting more. That seems to be the vibe I'm getting for what I've been hearing. I did the lead character. He did really do a good job. He was convincing as Lucius or, you know, and, and I appreciated that. And the woman, his mother, Connie Nielsen, Connie Nielsen, right. She, she did a good job again, playing her part. She was very sincere, very, very honorable, very stoic, you know, she loved her husband. She loved Rome. She was doing the right thing all the time. She had thought she had done the right thing by him by sending them down. Like, you know, I guess Moses, right. It was sent down the river and then they found them and rehabilitated them. Fun couple of hours, not fun movie. Yeah. Yeah. That's all I have to say. All right. Well, that's a wrap on this one, everyone. Thanks for tuning in and look for us next time. Cheers.