One Houston movie theater chain is taking the first steps towards reopening. Star Cinema Grill will reopen its Baybrook Mall location on Friday, May 8.
As detailed on the company's website, the theater has developed extensive procedures to comply with Gov. Greg Abbott's checklist for reopening. They include: selling all tickets via app, maintain at least two seats between adjacent parties, and operate at 25-percent capacity.
In addition, all servers will wear masks and all employees will undergo a health screening, including temperature check, at the start of each shift. Rather than use a call button to order refills, customers will use the company's app to limit contact.
“We take the responsibility of opening right now very seriously,” vice president of operations John Walsh said in a statement. “We are following all measures put in place by state and local authorities and have gone above and beyond those in most cases."
Star Cinema Grill vice president of development Jason Ostrow tells CultureMap that the company hopes to reopen additional locations "soon than later" after it evaluates how customers respond to the Baybrook opening.
The theater will feature a lineup of classic films such as Beverly Hills Cop, the Wizard of Oz, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Goonies, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, plus family-friendly films such as Lego Batman, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and all eight Harry Potter titles. Most tickets cost $4; the theater's luxurious premium pods cost $9 (discounted from $18, must be bought in pairs).
There are some films for which making a sequel is natural, and others where a follow-up is wholly unnecessary. Gladiator, which made both tons of money and was named Best Picture at the Oscars, told an impactful stand-alone story that ended with the protagonist dead and no real loose ends. And yet because there’s always more money to be made, here we are 24 years later with Gladiator II.
The lead character this time around is Lucius (Paul Mescal), a general in a North African army who becomes a prisoner of war when the Roman army led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) bests him and his troops in battle. Taken back to Rome, he is put in the pool of captured men forced to fight at the Colosseum for the amusement of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracella (Fred Hechinger).
Lucius is controlled by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), an ambitious schemer who bets liberally on his prized fighter and always has an eye to move up in the world. Meanwhile, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the sister of Emperor Commodus from the first film, is now married to Marcus Acacius and has a unique connection with Lucius that is fairly obvious from the get-go.
Directed once again by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, the film commits a number of sins throughout its 150-minute running time, the most blatant of which is that, aside from a few embellishments, it essentially tells the same story as the first film. Lucius, like Maximus, is a deposed military leader who’s out for revenge on the person who killed his family. Instead of one obnoxious emperor, there are now two. And the only way for Lucius to earn his freedom is to fight his way out.
Stories told in the same world can echo each other and, if done well, overcome those similarities. But Gladiator II is shockingly boring for a purported sword-and-sandals epic. Scott and his team try to introduce new elements to the fights, like a gladiator riding a rhinoceros or a ship battle inside the Colosseum (with sharks!), but most of the sequences are inert with no propulsion to them.
The action fails because none of the relationships in the film amount to much. There are stand-out characters like Macrinus and the twin emperors, but instead of creating antipathy or strong feelings of triumph or defeat, the story just kind of happens without any sense of excitement or importance. Much of that issue lies at the feet of Lucius, who simply doesn’t inspire in the same way that Russell Crowe’s Maximus did.
Mescal is a fine actor who’s done good work in more intimate roles, but he’s not up to the task of being an action star, at least not in this film. Any bombast he shows with the character feels forced, and the story doesn’t give him enough opportunities to counteract that lack. Washington, however, fills up the screen with his charisma, and it’s during his scenes that the film comes closest to being rousing. Quinn and Hechinger are a lot of fun as the twin emperors, but in the end they feel like retreads of Joaquin Phoenix from the original.
Any sequel should have a purpose that sets it apart from what came before, but Scott, Scarpa, and the rest of their team fail in that respect in Gladiator II. It’s a mostly lifeless film that delivers scenes that would be exciting if they had any kind of good story to back them up.
