Author: BRWC

Gladiator II: The BRWC Review. By Daniel Rester.

Ridley Scott, who is about to turn 87, is still able to deliver old-fashioned, muscular epics. His latest is Gladiator II, a legacy sequel to his Best Picture Oscar winner Gladiator (2000). That film remains influential and beloved by many to this day. The sequel doesn’t have the same grit and soul as the Russell Crowe-starring original, but it still has enough craftsmanship and excitement to make it a solid follow-up. 

Rising star Paul Mescal leads Gladiator II as Hanno, with the story taking place about sixteen years after the original film. Hanno farms with his wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen) in Numidia. After Numidia is attacked by Roman forces led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal), Hanno is taken prisoner and brought to Rome. 

The grand city is now controlled by emperor brothers Geta (Joseph Quinn, excellent) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger,  less impactful), who seek to control even more territory. They arrange gladiatorial games in the Colosseum to celebrate Acacius’ victories, though the general secretly plots against the rulers. Hanno, meanwhile, is controlled by Macrinus (Denzel Washington) and trained to fight as a gladiator.

Screenwriter David Scarpa, who also penned the scripts for Scott’s films All the Money in the World (2017) and Napoleon (2023), mostly sticks to a formulaic monomyth as Hanno transforms into a Maximus-like hero in the arena. Scarpa finds easy and contrived ways to link Hanno to the original film, especially once returning character Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) recognizes him. The narrative hits more entertaining beats when it focuses on the two new emperors and Macrinus, a trio of scheming antagonists. The screenplay’s dialogue has a few rah-rah sections, but little of it has the quotable rhetoric that Gladiator has. 

Though the script only offers a few real surprises, Scott elevates the film from feeling too cookie-cutter and makes everything look and sound awesome. His world-building abilities remain exceptional, with Rome feeling completely alive here. From the main cast members down to extras playing homeless people, Scott knows how to capture his actors in visually striking ways. He is of course greatly assisted by production designer Arthur Max and costume designer Janty Yates in making scenes and characters pop; Washington especially gets to dazzle in various colorful robes.

The action scenes are mostly mammoth and vigorous, shot with myriad angles by cinematographer John Mathieson and cut with energy by editors Claire Simpson and Sam Restivo. The blood and sweat of the fighters almost feel like they could drip out of the screen. Scott also allows time to show many nuanced facial expressions from people witnessing the violence on display. Only the CGI for some of the animals during the battles is unconvincing, with baboons, sharks, and a rhino looking cartoonish. 

Mescal’s choices shift between intriguing and flat. Gladiator II is his first “movie star” opportunity as he has stuck to indie films and television so far. The actor does fine enough as he tries to make Hanno more complex than what Scarpa has offered on the page. He’s no Crowe though. 

Better is Washington, who steals scenes left and right. The veteran makes eccentric and almost flamboyant choices throughout. It’s a delicious villain performance, and a riskier film might have pushed him as the main character. A scene involving him and someone’s decapitated head is one of the more memorable cinematic moments this year. 

Gladiator II won’t have the lasting power of Gladiator. It’s a well-made and very entertaining sequel, but it’s chained to a hackneyed script. Scott proves that he still has the directorial expertise to turn average scripts into above-average movies though.

Rating: 8/10

Memoir Of A Snail: Review. By Ayrton-Lewis Avery.

Memoir of a Snail, directed by Adam Elliot, has shown us a mastery of stop-motion claymation. Indeed, clay is the focal point and the principal motif of this film. Like clay, a child’s life is moulded from innocence into lucid awareness of the harshness of reality. This happens in a single moment. We see two snails having sex. Their supple bodies combine, and are merged into a single being, like two pieces of clay being cooked into one item. 

Clay comes from the ground. Thus, this movie is very grounded. But clay is also so ephemeral. Like memories. Memoir of a Snail is about memories of an Australia long past, a religious nation founded by conservative values. There is a strange amount of nostalgia, but it hurdles long past that vision. Instead, we are given a cast of very modern characters, including the twins Grace and Gilbert (voiced by Sarah Snook and Kodi Smit-McPhee). However, the filmmaker is also strangely critical of the looming power of the government. It is so unjust how the two siblings are separated at the beginning, and one is sent to harsh labour at a farm, and the other one is sent to a loving family. Everything in this clay world is so illogical, yet so convincing.

Of course, snails are the other motif. When the two siblings part, Gilbert gives Grace a memento: the sculpture of a snail. Why choose a snail? Is it a sign of weakness and insecurity? After all, Grace struggles with obsessive hoarding, depression, suicidal behavior, and she enters a relationship with the first man she meets. Really, it is only after the snails burn that she and Gilbert can move on with their lives. Perhaps they are a reminder of her childhood, when she was raised by an alcoholic and scantily available father. It is quite interesting how something like a snail can become such a dark and tragic symbol.

The film’s message is this: art is the great healer. Collecting snails kept her sane for a while, but it is not a true act of creation. Later, Grace becomes a stop-motion animation. Of course, in this world of clay, she screens a claymation film. Once again, clay is the unifying aspect: it allows her to finally reconnect (miraculously) with her long-lost brother, overcome all her trauma and give closure to the life of her father. Clay is contrasted with the hard shell of the snail: it is soft, comforting, and malleable, just like most humans are.

It should not be surprising that the film takes place on two opposite ends of Australia: Perth and Canberra. Thematically, it also deals with an entire nation. Its characters are conservative, liberal, passionate, abusive, depressive, and enlightening. It deals with homophobia, sexual fetishism, and religious conservatism. But most of all, it is surprising how Elliot has managed to make a narrative of dark tragicomedy out of human shortcoming and resilience. This is a very intriguing movie which combines opposites, resolves contradictions, and draws from a very extensive knowledge of the human condition. 

Score: 8/10

All The Men I Met But Never Dated: Review. By Simon Thompson 

Co-writer and director Muneeb Hassan’s short film All The Men I Met But Never Dated is a low-key understated effort, with excellent cinematography by Nicholas Pietroniro, and a pair of capable performances by its two leads. In only 12 minutes, the short manages to convey a complete three act story, with Hassan and co-writer David Stokes clearly demonstrating considerable skill when it comes to economical storytelling. 

The plot of the short tells the story of Ali (Ahmed Shihab -Eldin), a closeted gay Muslim who is put in a tough position when Oliver ( Jared P Smith) a man who he has fallen in love with, gives him an ultimatum of either coming out to his family or breaking up- because he doesn’t want their relationship to be a secret. 

The story is clearly extremely personal to Hassan which gives the short a strong degree of both realism and empathy which carries itself across its length. In terms of the acting, however, although Jared P Henson gives a solid enough performance as Oliver, Ahmed Shihab Eldin’s performance as Ali truly carries the movie. Eldin doesn’t go in for big showy gestures to convey the inner turmoil the character is going through, instead electing to use subtle gestures and an air of relaxed stillness, a stylistic decision that his performance greatly benefits from. 

The cinematography by Nicholas Pietroniro is excellent, with Pietroniro using a bright and expansive colour palette for the day sequences and switching to a much darker, more muted colour scheme during the evening party scenes. Through doing this Pietroniro creates a neat balance between both a dramatic and a realistic look at the same time, with the use of close ups giving the film an almost documentary-like quality. 

The score for the film, by Marina Havriliak, is unobtrusive and compliments the melancholic tone that Hassan is trying to establish nicely. While I wouldn’t go as far as saying it has any stand out tracks, it’s still perfectly pleasant to listen to. 

All The Men I Met But Never Dated is a purposeful and well-made short film, made by a clearly talented cast and crew with a strong vision of what they wanted the end result to be as well as being a piece of work which isn’t afraid to tackle a difficult subject, rooted in director Muneeb Hassan’s own personal life. 

Emilia Pérez – Review. By Daniel Rester.

Emilia Pérez is the kind of audacious film from a gifted director that just never quite finds the right balance despite much effort being put into it. French filmmaker Jacques Audiard (who made the terrific picture A Prophet (2009)) certainly shows ambition and panache for his latest project, but his execution as both writer and director is muddled. His Spanish-language Netflix film can’t settle on a tone or genre, shifting between campy musical, crime drama, grounded romance, and action thriller. 

Karla Sofía Gascón plays the titular character. She begins the film as a cartel leader in Mexico named Juan Del Monte before secretly undergoing gender-affirming surgery with assistance from lawyer Rita Castro (Zoe Saldaña). Emilia then leaves her old life behind, with her wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and kids thinking she died as Juan. Four years later, Emilia re-enters their lives by pretending to be a distant cousin of Juan’s. 

Both Gascón and Saldaña give powerhouse performances in Emilia Pérez. They bring depth and humanity to their characters with everything from small eye movements to emotional outbursts. Saldaña throws herself into the dancing scenes as well, with the highlight of the film involving her singing a song called “El Mal” at a dinner banquet. It’s an electric scene, with Saldaña sporting a red coat and hopping around on multiple tables. 

Gomez is fine as Jessi, but the pop star is outshined by Gascón and Saldaña in the more dramatic moments. Adriana Paz tries to bring the film back down to reality with her understated work as a woman who falls for Emilia, but she gets too little to do in an underwritten subplot. Édgar Ramírez is also underutilized as a dangerous man Jessi once had an affair with. 

Instead of really diving into Emilia’s thoughts and challenges as a trans woman, the film instead feels superficial and treats her like Mrs. Doubtfire as she tries to reconnect with her children and community in positive ways. There are moments when Emilia and Rita show flashes of complexity, as when they sit down for lunch and discuss Rita’s future, but Audiard’s writing mostly keeps them distant. Even when Emilia is first discussing transitioning with a doctor, the scene comes across as perfunctory rather than revealing. 

The flat characters can mostly be forgiven due to the strong efforts given by the cast members, but the film around them keeps misfiring too as Audiard keeps changing up the content and style. One scene might be awkward and almost silly (as when a doctor states the obvious about genitalia in a song) while another is gritty and serious (as with the climactic shootout). Individually, some of the scenes are well-staged, but smashed together they come across as poorly structured by Audiard. 

Paul Guilhaume’s cinematography is wildly uneven in capturing Audiard’s vision too. The “El Mal” scene and a few others have great attention to detail in terms of smooth camera movement and optimal lighting, and yet there are also simple two-person dialogue scenes in offices that have jittery shots and scattered shadows. 

Emilia Pérez has two great performances at its center and some inspired and entertaining filmmaking choices at times. But it always feels like Audiard is forcing six different films together instead of finding one cohesive vision. It at least takes a few risky swings though, which is more than many other Netflix movies do lately.  

Rating: 5.7/10