It’s kind of charming to me that after 50 damn years of filmmaking, it’s still a coin-flip whether a Ridley Scott movie is going to be good or not. Sir Ridley’s not like Steven Spielberg, who mostly keeps knocking them out of the park; nor Cameron Crowe, who released “Almost Famous” and then forgot how moviemaking works. He tiptoes down the middle, daring you to believe in him with an “American Gangster” and then pooping out a “Robin Hood.”  

So you’d be forgiven for thinking a lega-sequel to his 2000 blockbuster “Gladiator” would fall on the poop side of the line. It seems like nobody outside of the Hollywood bean-counting office was asking for this. But he’s done it, folks; he’s managed to make a big dumb watchable action movie!