Ridley Scott will go down in capitals movie history for many reasons. The most indisputable thing is that he began his career with three almost consecutive masterpieces. I never tire of watching and listening, even if I know them by heart, The Duelists, Stranger And Blade Runner. Scott could have said: “I’ll leave it at that, because after these three marvels, I’m retiring. » But he continued to make a lot of films and also produced other people’s films, viewing cinema as a great spectacle. His long career has contained it all: forgettable films, hits, mediocre art, deserved failures. He also demonstrated his authorship with powerful works that were appreciated by the general public, one of his legitimate, permanent and laudable aspirations. For example, successful films Thelma and Louise, American Gangster, The Last Duel And Gladiator.

I imagine the commercial and artistic success of this Roman general called Maximus Decimus Meridius, who managed to survive the infamy perpetrated against him and his family by a psychopathic and sadistic emperor, becoming the king of gladiators with the vibrant motto ” Strength and honor” is the main driving force behind tell the story of his heir. That is, for the money, he expects a huge return at the box office in times of crisis, which is vital for the continued operation of the opulent factory he runs.

And Scott has a good chance of achieving his main goal. But here strength and honor are non-existent, the screenplay (which was not written by the same gentlemen who wrote the first) Gladiator) is as absurd as it is unintentionally comical (alas, the Roman Colosseum has turned into a swimming pool infested with sharks!), and the descendant of Connie Nielsen’s princess is stupidly predictable, played without flair by the bland protagonist Paul Mescal ( who is a character far cry from Russell Crowe, with his fascinating presence and voice).

The battles are resolved with formality, devoid of any magnetic attraction, either in the story itself or in the way it is told, and the storyline is full of caricatures like those of the two emperors of Rome: remarkably brothers idiots with dubiously exotic names Geta and Caracalla. They are bland and not at all sophisticated. They have a specialist in devious manipulation alongside them who is one of the few things that got me out of the doldrums, because he is played by an actor as strong as Denzel Washington.

A nice friend of mine doesn’t understand why this so-called spectacle arouses so much boredom in me. He told me: “It’s just a Roman film like all the others, neither better nor worse.” I had to remind him that the epic and magnificent Spartacus And Ben Hur also belonged to this genus. And the first Gladiator. How I feared that the incomparable The godfather would give rise to a sequel. But Coppola proved that one could be sublime with continuity: Godfather 2 was breathtaking. Shakespeare would have identified with it. The third opus was also very good: it did not reach the level of its predecessors, even if its final act was unbeatable.

And I suspect that if the deal works out for him, Scott will already be thinking about doing a third. Gladiator. Or five. He is 86 years old. His previous film, Napoleonwas as pretentious as it was boring. But the plant needs to be nourished. It would be desirable for him to do so with better films, up to the level of intelligence he demonstrated during his first three triumphs.

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