Gladiator II Review

Ready to re-enter the Colosseum in ancient Rome? In 2000 Gladiator was released, the historical epic won five Academy awards including Best Picture and Best Actor for Russell Crowe. Twenty-four years later director Ridley Scott has given us a sequel - Gladiator II. Scott had a mammoth task at hand, how do you create a sequel to one of the greatest films of all time? Gladiator II is a four-star exhilarating historical epic. It fails to live up to its predecessor, but that doesn't not mean it is a bad film or even an unworthy sequel. I greatly enjoyed the cinematic experience that is Gladiator II, in all its historically epic style! Read on for my full review, there will be minor spoilers.  Set two decades after the events of Gladiator, you may expect to find a free Rome ruled by a senate that answers to the people, as was the dream of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. a Rome that Maximus fought and died to reform. However, Rome is now ruled by young and cruel twin Emperors Caracalla (Fred He...

Cats Review

So, for some reason I decided to see Cats at the cinema tonight. I never even watched one of the trailers in full, but I couldn't resist the Lure of a Musical. I went into the cinema having never seen Cats before, I had no idea what it was about, I didn't even know the song Memories was from Cats. I had no idea what to expect and honestly, I thought it would be a fun and visually exciting film however Cats is just weird. I can finally say that for the first time ever I considered both walking out of a movie and falling asleep. This review is going to be shorter than usual but please do read on because not everything I thought is negative (I promise). Trust me there will be no spoilers in this post.  
Normally I would start by giving a quick rundown of a film's narrative, however I don't think I can do that for Cats. Why you ask? Well because I am not fully sure what this movie is about, I spent the first twenty minutes being completely confused - during this time I considered leaving the movie several times. Then I got slightly to grips with what was going on and it seems like this movie is about a conveniently timed talent show that may or may not lead to the death of the winner (I mean the winner just vanished into the clouds so...). It's all very strange and honestly, I'm not even going to try and work out what was even going on. 

Cats has a cast full of huge stars all of which perform very well. There is so much talent on screen but that does little to the boring songs and lack of coherent narrative. The main character Victoria is played by the incredible ballerina Francesca Hayward - her voice is stunning, but her dancing is dreamy. Jason Derulo was fantastic, he should sing like that more because he would get so many number ones! Taylor Swift and James Corden shinned in their brief roles - the movie should have given them more screen time. Jennifer Hudson had the only moment of the film that I loved - when she sings Memories in full. There is no denying Jennifer Hudson's incredible voice and she shinned despite her undeveloped role. Sadly, both Judi Dench and Ian Mckellen fail to shine and I think thats down to the poor narrative and dull characters. Sadly, even the amazing performances fail to make Cats anything more than boring.    

I just want to touch quickly on how strange the cats looked, not only did it distract from film, but it also just looked wrong. The main characters at least had nice realistic looking fur, whereas the extras looked clearly CGI. I'm not even going to discuss the coat thing or the fact that Rebel Wilson could unzip her fur - I'm still freaked out. Cats had the potential to be at least visually interesting and creative - but it wasn't. The CGI was patchy at best. 

Ugh I hate writing such a negative review but Cats really is dull. I would love for someone to tell me why the stage show was so popular because if it was anything like this movie, I cannot see the appeal. I honestly don't think I'll ever even attempt to watch this film again. 

Thank you for reading - Sorry it was so negative xx

You can Buy Cats by CLICKING HERE

   

Comments

  1. I really wanted to see this as I never got to see the stage show ,which by the way my granddaughter said was fantastic, then I saw poor reviews and wondered if it was actually worth a trip to the cinema so now I've decided I'll pass on 'Cats' and trot off to see 'Little Women' one of my favourite books/ films from childhood .

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  2. Thank you for reading Sue. I really hope you enjoy Little Women. It's very sad that Cats does not live up to the hype xx

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