Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Trying to follow the plot of this film is like walking into a movie halfway through and trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

Jupiter Ascending is a 2015 sci fi film directed by the Wachowskis and starring Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum and Eddie Redmayne.

The story of Jupiter Ascending is so hard to follow I actually literally checked the display a few times to make sure I hadn’t accidentally skipped a chapter. Even the exposition-heavy voiceover fails to make the plot any less incomprehensible. And I use the term ‘plot’ pretty loosely. It was directed by the Wachowski brothers, who are now (through the miracle of modern medicine) the Wachowski brother and sister. But this film is kind of what I imagine the Matrix might have been if someone like Michael Bay had directed it. A toxic overdose of style that masks any trace of substance that might have tried to waft on through. Obscene amounts of money spent on CGI effects with a ludicrous story shoehorned in between action scenes. And that action tries valiantly to mask plot holes so massive you could jump through them without touching the sides.

Take the first action sequence with the main actors, Mila Kunis, playing the heroine, Jupiter Jones (a character name that would make Stan Lee smirk with amusement) and Channing Tatum. He’s the loyal hero (his name, Caine Wise, sounds like a brand of dog food). Anyway he’s tasked with protecting her from the bad guys. They are outnumbered and outgunned, so naturally you’d think they’d opt for low-key (think Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor), but what does he do? He activates his gravity-defying rocket boots, scoops her up into his arms like Superman, and launches out of a high-rise building high above Chicago. Naturally this alerts every bad guy within a six mile radius so we get some ridiculous action scene with people jetting around skyscrapers and ping pinging lasers at each other. Why not just walk downstairs and hail a cab?

Another scene that is miraculous in its stupidity is when the bad guys try to kill Caine by jettisoning him into space. Only they launch him out into space with a whole bunch of inflatable oxygen suits. What the holy fuck? That's like trying to drown a guy by dropping him into the ocean with a scuba tank.

Of course Channing Tatum spends half the film with his shirt off. I suppose when a producer pays to have an actor spend four months in the gym before filming they expect some return on investment from the ‘squealing teenage girl’ demographic. I don’t mind me a bit of hunky man flesh, but only when it’s attached to a halfway decent actor. Take Jason Statham. He could spend every movie wearing nothing but a rhinestone-encrusted jock strap and it’d be fine, because he’s fun to watch. Channing Tatum has all the charisma of a damp sponge. Plus there’s his make-up. He looks like Mr Tumnus from The Chronicles of Narnia on steroids:

Another nonsensical plot point is when Titus (Douglas Booth) asks Jupiter to marry him (I'd explain why, but my brain might implode). When she gets cold feet he tells her not to think of it as a marriage in human terms, but rather like a mutually-beneficial ‘contract’. Fair enough. So then why give her a giant fucking engagement ring? If you want her to think of it as a contract, oh I don’t know, maybe just get her to sign a piece of paper?

While we're talking about the plot, the big reveal halfway through is that humankind is being ‘harvested’ to create some sort of anti-ageing wonder drug for the ruling classes of the universe. Unlike a similar reveal in The Matrix, which came as a shocking and disturbing twist, the reveal here has no weight whatsoever. It’s all a bit ‘so…what else has been happening?’

If it’s not the plot that’s annoying, the dialogue is not much better.  It consists of gems like this exchange between Channing Tumnus and Jupiter:

Caine: "I'm more dog than man."
Jupiter: "I like dogs."

Just about the only thing in the film that’s not annoying is the villain, Balem Abrasax (okay so the name sucks) played by Eddie Redmayne. Redmayne mostly whispers his lines in a sort of snake-like way for most of the movie, and that’s entertaining in its own right, but he then occasionally launches into this weird, breathless screaming. This sounds annoying but trust me, his bonkers performance pole-vaults so far over the top that it actually manages to transcend the shittiness and becomes its own gleeful diversion. It’s far and away the best performance (which admittedly isn’t a difficult feat) because he’s the only one that seems to realise he’s in a preposterous film. He actually seems to be having fun with it, whereas everyone else has a bad case of Serious Face.

Regular readers of this blog will know how much I hate lazy exposition, but bizarrely in the case of Jupiter Ascending I actually didn’t mind because without it I had no fucking idea what the hell was happening. I was actually relieved by the predictableness (yeah yeah I know that’s not a word) of the characters pausing after every action scene to explain what just happened. They spend half the film explaining who certain characters are, where and what the place is, and how certain things in this universe work etc (like princess-smelling bees?? Jerry Maguire-kid didn’t include that one when he taught me that bees and dogs can smell fear).

Don’t get me wrong though, even with half the script devoted entirely to exposition the film is still unbelievably baffling. With a better film I’d suggest that this could be alleviated by making it longer, but in this case, I’m more than happy to leave shit unexplained. I don’t think I could take a director’s cut, I’d probably end up hanging myself.

The Wachowskis have a lot of talent, but if the result of them being given a massive budget and free reign results in crap like this I’d prefer they have their ideas vetted more. That said, the ideas themselves are quite brilliant, they just fall short in the execution. For instance the film is blatantly anti-capitalist but this theme is conveyed so ham-fistedly (villains incessantly yabbering on about the virtues of capitalism) it comes off as almost farcical. The movie also takes the very Philip K Dick-esque idea of ‘time as a precious resource’ but then gives that idea all the depth of a wading pool. It’s a watered-down mimosa to Bladerunner’s shot of rye with a beer chaser.

All the shittiness aside, I actually liked the film's conclusion, even though it was amazing that I was actually still paying attention at this point. The idea offered up is that, flying in the face of all the characters’ repeated assertions throughout the film, there is indeed something more precious than time. If you can’t guess what that is, I guess you'll just have to endure the film.

The Adventures of Tintin (2011)

I swear by now Andy Serkis has just permanently glued motion capture dots to his face.

The Adventures of Tintin is a 2011 animated film directed by Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg and starring Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis and Daniel Craig.

That this film is enjoyable and exciting from start to finish is a great example of what happens when an adaptation is made by film makers who are dedicated fans of the original work. That this film received such an abundance of negative criticism upon its release is what happens when that film is then watched by people who are idiots.

When I first read about the Spielberg adaptation of Tintin it was planned as a live action film. I immediately recalled the abysmal live action film from the 80’s. Enough said.

But after I heard that Peter Jackson had become involved, with the full weight of Weta Workshop behind him, and that the film was to be CGI-motion-capture, I became excited. Jackson was the perfect film maker for this – his Lord of the Rings adaptation proved he is skilled at both keeping loyal fans happy, and bringing in new ones.

And unlike Tolkien’s wordy, old-English, Anglo-mythology (which must have been extremely challenging to adapt visually), Herge’s visual style of drawing would have essentially constituted a ready-made storyboard.

One of my favourite scenes is early on – where Snowy chases the kidnapped Tintin (Jamie Bell) across town. It’s a great example of the freedom a pure CGI film allows – the camera ducks and weaves through traffic, passes through gaps far too narrow for any human cameraman to pass through, and races along behind Snowy as he leaps over cars, people, and fences. It’s an amazing piece of action.

While the film is mostly an adaptation of The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure, it also takes sections from The Crab with the Golden Claws, which was necessary to do justice to introducing the character of Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis).

My other favourite scenes are the ‘flashbacks’ Haddock has to his ancestor doing battle with the pirate Red Rackham. The high seas confrontation is the best tall ship battle I’ve ever seen put to film. It’s fantastic in every sense of the word.

One departure from the books I thought was really necessary was the decision to not have Snowy vocalise his thoughts the way he does in the books. In the film he is a real dog, but the way he’s written it’s obvious what he’s thinking anyway.

The film manages to seamlessly mix comedy and action. The comedy is both dry and slapstick, and the action ranges from light hearted (the pickpocket scenes) to way over the top, but it never strays into absurdity. It’s like a CGI version of the set pieces from an Indiana Jones film.

The set pieces themselves are just incredible. The highlight for me is the scene where Tintin and Haddock (and Snowy of course) escape the freight ship in a small rowboat and then end up in the biplane. It’s a perfect example of what I was just saying – comedy and action seamlessly mixed. From Haddock drunkenly setting the boat on fire to Tintin bringing the plane down with a well aimed shot, and their subsequent hijack of the plane and flight through the storm, to the final tense/comedic bit where Tintin is almost pulled into the propeller but saved by a desperate Snowy, the whole scene is magnificently executed. Motion capture has come a long way and the animators here should be very proud of their work indeed.

And unlike some of Peter Jackson’s longer adventures, the intrigue and exposition between the action set pieces never drags (I’m thinking of the sleep-inducing Merry and Pippin/Treebeard sequences from Lord of the Rings).

Most of the character voice acting is spot on, with the exception of Daniel Craig. I really like him as an actor, he has screen presence up the yin yang but here his voice is just too recognisable or something. You immediately picture James Bond’s voice coming out of a middle aged guy with a cane. It just doesn’t work.

But that’s a small gripe in what is otherwise one of the best animated films I’ve ever seen. Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg have awesome jobs – they get unlimited funds to basically play with toys on a massive scale. I certainly hope that despite the negative criticism they do decide to team up again and that there’s more Adventures of Tintin on the way. Two hours well spent.

Prey (2007)

This movie made me wonder what I'd find more horrifying: being stalked by a pack of man-eating lions, or being stuck in a car with a whining teenage girl.

Prey is a 2007 film directed by Darrell Roodt and starring Peter Weller and Bridget Moynahan.

When the opening scene of Prey showed, in graphic detail, actual documentary footage of a bunch of female lions dragging a zebra to the ground and going for the kill, I hoped I was in store for something truly horrifying, and perhaps more importantly, bold and original.

What I got was a corny family Drama (that's not a typo, this is drama with a capital D…) with some man eating lions and meany tribesmen thrown in (the latter almost as an afterthought).

The Newman family (Peter 'Robocop' Weller, Bridget Moynahan and two snotty brats) are in Africa. While Tom (Weller) is there for work, the wife and kids decide to take a relaxing safari to see some wild animals and great scenery. Unfortunately, their dipshit guide decides to go "off the beaten track", and winds up mauled by a lion when he and the annoying son go for a whizz. This of course leaves Mommy and the kids stranded, surrounded by wild lions, who see nothing more than a meal wrapped in a Jeep. After no success with the local bushmen, Daddy decides to venture off into the scrub (with a lunatic the locals avoid) to track down the family himself, and this leads to....yadda yadda you get the idea (even non-jaded filmgoers will have no trouble predicting the outcome of this film).

With such a good premise you'd think it'd be hard to screw it up. But somehow, director and co-writer Darrell Roodt, and writer Beau Bauman manage to do just that.

You see, Mommy isn’t really Mom, she's "Step Mom", and that’s where the Drama comes in. The 14 year old girl resents her, and decides that hey, this is as good a time as any to discuss some issues with her. Are you yawning yet? Don't worry, you soon will be.

The lion attacks are less than impressive. We get the obligatory "Monster-POV" shots, some CGI blood spatters and zero suspense. Then, when Step Mommy braves the outside to retrieve the car keys from the dead guide, you think, well, they're safe now. Just turn the Jeep around and go back the way you came. Lions are pretty cluey but their intelligence stops short of being able to, you know, open car doors.

But no, of course this doesn't happen because it makes too much sense. Step Mommy panics, floors it, and drives like a blind monkey straight into a ditch, leaving them stranded again in a even worse predicament than before.

I start clock-watching during horror movies when the main characters do things that are so idiotic your sympathy for them flies out the nearest window. Step Mommy's suicidal drive is a case in point. It reeks of lazy writing, and this movie is full of it.

The later scenes with the African tribesmen attempt to inject a bit of tension into a failing movie, but even a tangent can't save this film.

Prey could have been very cool. The premise is not that original but in horror films, there's some predictability that works. This film doesn’t. For a film about a family trapped by inhospitable desert and hunted by wild animals, there's a distinct lack of tension. Every time there can be a rampant cliché, there is. And the ending had me stop just short of throwing my remote at the screen. If you're brave enough to watch it through, you'll see what I mean.

Obviously some effort went into the production which was not wasted. The real lions featured here are magnificent creatures, and they are obviously well-trained. Bridget Moynahan turns in a fairly solid performance despite the lacklustre script. The cinematography by Michael Brierly is actually not bad, despite a sepia-tone in an effort to create a sun drenched look.

But sadly the movie is just pretty awful. The lion attack scene in the historical adventure flick Mountains of the Moon crams more tension into about 30 seconds of screen time than this movie does in all its 90 minutes.

If I'm ever trapped with these idiots I think I'll bail out of the Jeep and take my chances with the lions.

Ghoulies (1984)

I knew I was in trouble when I looked up Ghoulies on a website and the first keyword that came up was 'toilet'.

Ghoulies is a 1984 horror comedy directed by Luca Bercovici and starring Peter Liapis and Lisa Pelikan.

Ordinarily any film that features a pair of demonic midgets would be guaranteed to scary the holy shit out of me, but this film just left me wanting to bang my head against something solid. 

Ghoulies is a pretty poor excuse for any kind of film, much less a horror. I mean, for one thing, the ghoulies are peripheral characters at best. Some blonde sorcerer guy is the actual movie monster of the film. What a colossal let down. I was expecting a cheap version of Gremlins, or some decent gore, or at the very least a nice pair of naked breasts to look at, but this movie had none of that.

This is supposed to be a horror-comedy. I think the first thing you should do if you're going to put the word 'comedy' anywhere near a film, is make it funny. It's about as funny as a case of gastro. Before the ghoulies appeared in the film I found myself examining the DVD case wondering if somehow some other film had ended up in the box by mistake. But no. The movie's just shit.

And to make matters worse, the ghoulies are cute, not slimy and gross. I wanted to trap one and take him home as a pet. 

And at the end of the day, it's just plain boring. I was begging to be scared, or shocked, or even mildly entertained, but as the minutes ticked by I realized that hope was forlorn.

I must admit I did enjoy the freaky clown though. Best acting in the entire film, and I always find clowns freaky. But any movie that makes me start absently humming "I gotta wear shades" can never be counted among my favourites. I'm referring of course to the stoner idiot who never takes his off. People that wear sunglasses indoors should be shot.

The sorcerer boy is Jonathan (Peter Liapis). He and his girlfriend Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan) have just moved into his late father's mansion, which Jonathan has inherited. It seems Daddy was a Satanist who liked to perform magic rituals in the basement, so naturally Jonathan has picked up this little genetic anomaly, and he begins to do it himself. No sooner has he barked a few spells he's conjured some puppets and Daddy's even back from the dead too. Oh, and he also conjures two midgets, as you do.

Anyway, a bunch of Jonathan and Rebecca's friends die in the ensuing chaos before he has a show down with his sorcerer Dad and saves the day. Verdict: watch Gremlins instead.

Note: this is an updated version of a review I posted for Ghoulies on Best-Horror-Movies.com. The original can be seen here: http://www.best-horror-movies.com/review?name=ghoulies-1985-review 

The Postman (1997)

Kevin Costner swaps Waterworld for dry land, drapes himself in the American flag, and fails spectacularly to save humanity.

The Postman is a 1997 epically boring film starring Kevin Costner, Olivia Williams, and Larenz Tate.

I’m not entirely sure what killed Kevin Costner’s career. But the Postman certainly couldn’t have helped. In a nutshell – it’s a terrible film.

For starters, it goes forever. Seriously. Some films seem long. The Postman seems like it’s never going to end. Like you’re going to get stuck in some Groundhog Day-like time warp where whenever you turn on a television, anywhere, the Postman will still be on.

It truly is woeful. The plot is mostly incomprehensible and the few times it makes any kind of sense you realise how incredibly silly it is.

It’s 2013 and a nuclear war or whatever has wiped out civilisation as we knew it. Costner plays a drifter, basically his character from Waterworld but on land who gets captured by a group of survivors but he escapes and takes refuge in a jeep where he finds the skeleton of a mailman and a mail bag. He decides to deliver the letters and this somehow leads him to decide he needs to save humanity and restore order to the universe. Or some shit like that. Seriously. I didn’t make that up. That really is the plot.

In order to be a successful action movie hero, I think it’s probably necessary to have a fairly massive ego. But Kevin Costner’s must be planetary in size. Like, cosmic.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind him as an actor. I think I just prefer him in films he hasn't directed himself. But after his huge success with Dances with Wolves (which is a very good film) he seemed to get locked into this ‘directing himself as the hero’ spiral where every movie he did had to feature him saving humanity. First came Waterworld (which is not an awful film. It’s bad, it’s just not as bad as people think it is), and then hot on the heels of that came this steaming pile.

Usually I can find some merit even in the most God-awful movies. But there’s literally nothing to like about the Postman. The ‘post-apocalyptic’ world is so badly done it seems like nothing has changed except people ride horses instead of drive cars. The acting is all over the place. The story (such as it is) falls to pieces like a matchstick house the second you give it any kind of serious thought, there’s plot holes the size of canyons, the music is hopelessly mismatched to the scenes it scores, and the script is like one of those ambling stories you’d write in high school for an assignment where you had to write a certain number of words but got stuck at like, 300. So you’d just make up stupid tangents and repeat things over and over again until you got to 1000 words. It’s drivel. It’s clichéd, and so over the top that it might have worked as satire if it’s hand wasn’t firmly over its heart the entire time.

I really want to stop but I can’t. This film is sort of what I imagine the result would be if some redneck American Republicans got together, got loaded on bourbon, and started fantasizing about what would happen if ‘we was runnin things’. For one thing, people in Costner's growing band of Merry Postmen keep going on about the ‘Reformed Congress of the United States’, whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean.

In directing this film, Costner committed a cardinal sin – he tried to appeal to absolutely everyone. We’ve got humour (albeit laboured), a romantic subplot, and loads of emotionally manipulative scenes that I think are supposed to induce clapping and cheering, but instead I found myself dry reaching and wondering how long this stupid film had to go. I wanted to be able to laugh at these scenes, in a so-bad-it’s-good way, but I just couldn’t. In trying to appeal to all and offend no-one, the film just winds up being incredibly unappealing in every way.

It's staggering to think how bad this film is when compared to Costner’s directorial debut Dances with Wolves.  The Postman was a shitty idea and it’s made worse by being poorly executed.

Three hours of my life (wait…I think it might actually still be going) that I really, really wish I could get back.

Iron Eagle (1986)

Lamar from Revenge of the Nerds and a bunch of precocious teenagers rescue Tim Thomerson from certain death at the hands of Poirot!

Iron Eagle is a 1986 film directed by Sidney J Furie and starring Jason Gedrick and Louis Gossett Jr.

Even for an action movie made smack bang in the middle of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Iron Eagle pushes the boundaries of ridiculousness. It shamelessly rides on the coat tails of the far superior Top Gun, it shits all over a fictional Middle Eastern country, the action scenes are haphazardly staged and filmed (seriously, don’t attempt a drinking game where you take a shot every time there’s a continuity error – you’ll die of alcohol poisoning), and the story is far-fetched in the extreme.

Yet I can’t help but love the shit out of this movie. I think it’s quite possibly the greatest thing on the face of the Earth.

Strangely, the most well-filmed action sequence is one of the least important but most ridiculous. It’s right at the start, where they establish what a good pilot Doug Masters (Jason Gedrick) is by having him race a dirt bike in his Cessna. Yes, that’s not a typo. Plane vs motorbike. It’s actually a really good sequence, featuring a light aircraft being flown at insanely low altitude through canyons. It’s so well filmed it doesn’t jazz with the later flying sequences featuring jet fighters. They are so different it’s almost as if one director filmed this sequence, then read the rest of the script and ran away.

What I love most about this film is that despite the idiocy of the script it tries valiantly to be sincere. Doug’s father (the always awesome Tim Thomerson) has been shot down and taken prisoner. So we get these hopelessly emotional scenes at the start where Doug pleads with some generic Army guy that the suits in Washington are doing nothing to save his good old Dad from the clutches of a generic Middle Eastern dictator (played by none other than David ‘Poirot’ Suchet), a guy who is obviously based on Ghaddafi (or however you spell it).

What makes these silly scenes so much funnier is that right after one of them, Doug decides to attend his high school prom so we get some woeful scene featuring Lamar from Revenge of the Nerds busting some moves on the dance floor (the film is also casually racist – only the black guy knows how to dance).

So of course because the Government is powerless to intervene, Doug and his loyal band of teenage army brats must take matters into their own hands. They are assisted by the always reliable Louis Gossett Jr, playing Chappy, a retired army pilot whose motivation for wanting to help seems to boil down to some teary, badly-written scene where he reminisces about some kid he saw killed in Vietnam…or something. Those damn rice paddies have a lot to answer for.

This leads to a montage where we see the kids breaking into various air force bases and classified documents rooms to get some blueprints and maps and also somehow manage to steal two fully armed F-16 fighter jets. They make it seem as easy as chucking some packets of gum down your pants and waddling out of the corner store. There’s even a scene where two of them, dressed in some kind of weird Village People disguises, distract some guards at the base by throwing fire crackers into a 44 gallon drum. And no, they aren’t killed in a hail of machine gun fire, it’s played for a gag.

The whole ‘planning stage’ of the rescue operation is pretty much played for laughs. They kick about in a clubhouse, play tricks on hapless army guys, do silly voices and then all of a sudden the film shifts back into serious mode as Doug and Chappy take to the skies.

Oh I need to backtrack to one of my other favourite things about this film. You see, Doug is only a good pilot as long as he has 80’s rock music blasting on his Walkman. Again, that’s not a typo and no, I’m not kidding. He can’t fire missiles straight unless he has his music on. It’s possibly the greatest way I’ve ever seen songs shoehorned into an action film.

And speaking of tapes… Chappy’s made these ‘motivational’ tapes for Doug to listen to on the flight over. What is hilarious is that he seems to have made one for every possible eventuality. There’s one in the event of his death. There’s one for if they make it. One for if they don’t. One for when he’s rescued his dad. I just picture Doug fumbling with them in the cockpit, squinting at the labels Chappy’s put on them *click* IF YOU GET SHOT DOWN “uhhh dammit wrong tape!” They all pretty much say the same thing anyway: Don’t worry, it’ll be all right, have faith in yourself, kid. Chappy’s like a cross between Mr Miyagi and Yoda.

And getting back to continuity errors, one of my favourites comes toward the end when Doug decides to blow up one of Poirot’s oil refineries. You see him fly over what is quite obviously a water plant. And for some reason this makes Poirot agree to let Tim Thomerson go, to meet Doug on a tarmac. Of course Poirot thinks he’s setting a trap because Doug will obviously have to land in order to pick up his dad, but never fear as this gives Doug a chance to use his secret weapon: some ridiculous bomb called the “Hades” which puts up some kind of wall of fire between him and bad guys so he can take off.

The film just keeps piling on the stupidity. We see the bad guys rip tarps off some anti-aircraft guns. It’s edited and scored like an “uh oh” moment, but Doug then blows the guns up before they have a chance to do anything.

Ah heck, I love this film. I love its blatant geographical and continuity errors (look out for Doug’s dad’s plane at the start – missiles loaded under its wings appear and disappear at random). I love its shameless pro-Americanism (at one point Lamar even remarks that the bad guys don’t stand a chance because ‘Ronny Ray-Gun’ is in charge). I love the silly attempts at emotion and Chappy’s self-help tapes. And I love that the bad guy is a British guy playing a Middle Eastern guy speaking with a Latin accent. Jesus I miss the 80's.

Gladiator (2000)

Russell Crowe tries to change his name to 'Gladiator', Richard Harris makes Joaquin Phoenix mad, and Germans never got the 'don't kill the messenger' memo.

Gladiator is a 2000 epic directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix and Djimon Hounsou.

The best part of owning the ‘Extended Edition’ blu ray of Gladiator for me is the introduction by Ridley Scott. I find it hilarious. I don’t think he could sound less enthusiastic about it. The entire speech just screams ‘Universal made me do this’. And Universal, as if as some kind of weird punishment, makes this introduction impossible to avoid. It automatically plays every time you watch the film.

The fact the extended edition always begins with the director telling you that he got it right the first time ends up being remarkably apt, because he did. None of the extra scenes really add much to the film. It certainly isn’t ruined by the added 17 minutes or so, but the theatrical cut is a great example of it being unnecessary to fix something that isn’t broken.

Anyway, whatever version you prefer, Gladiator is an excellent film.

The opening battle sequence, where Maximus’ (Crowe) army confronts the Germanic warriors, is expertly staged and superbly filmed and scored. Beginning any ‘epic’ with the massive set piece battle has become somewhat of a cliché these days, but it began here, and it hasn’t really been topped. I love the lead up to the action. From Maximus quietly watching the sparrow launch itself off a branch amidst the smoke of the burning oil, to the way his dog runs alongside his horse as he gallops through the lines of his men, to the ‘message’ the Germans deliver in the form of the Roman messenger being returned minus his head, I love everything about it.

One of the things I like most about this film is the fact it pretty much lacks subtlety of any kind. Almost everything about Gladiator is overt. Ridley Scott directs the film as spectacle in the image of the old greats like Ben Hur and Spartacus and The Fall of the Roman Empire. The visuals of ancient Rome, despite being a bit turn-of-the-century clunky CGI, are really impressive. Scott's trademark attention to period detail is on fine display.

And I like that Russell Crowe gives Maximus some depth. He begins the film the honourable, revered general leading his men into battle, then becomes the bitter vengeful slave and finally the balls-to-the-wall “are you not entertained?” gladiator.

I do like one of the film’s only moments of subtlety though – it’s Maximus' quiet conversation with Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) at the beginning, where he describes his home in Spain. Crowe is excellent in this scene - he is by turns stoic and longing.

The other performance I like is Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus. Phoenix is a very impressive actor. His Commodus is evil in the best way – he’s unpredictable. He’s one of those people you’d feel really uncomfortable being alone with. You could never relax because he always looks like he’s just about to unhinge and start ranting and snapping like a rabid animal. He plays some scenes like a hurt sheep, but there’s always the menace of the wolf lurking just beneath the surface. He actually benefits from one of the scenes added to the extended edition – where he confronts a marble bust of his dead father and begins hacking at it with a sword. He's both pathetic and incredibly threatening.

All the performances are pretty spot on. I particularly like Maximus’ friend, Cicero (Tommy Flanagan). He’s that quietly loyal-to-the-bitter-end sidekick to the main hero that I always enjoy in films like this.

Anyway, this film will go down in movie history as accomplishing two things – firstly, it made Russell Crowe a star. And secondly, it made swords and sandals epics cool again. Both of which were more than welcome with me. Two and a half hours well spent.