Scott's muscle-bound pseudo-epic falls prey to the Godzilla fallacy
of having size but not knowing what to do with it. It wants sweep and
scope, stretches and strains for a rousing, triumphal grandeur. But as
soon as the characters open their mouths, thumbs down. In the end, a limp
splurge of pure aesthetics, with a Roman cityscape to rival Los Angeles
2019, confusingly flashy fight sequences, and a score (by Hans Zimmer
and Lisa Gerrard) which sounds cobbled together from The Thin Red Line
and The Insider. Phoenix and Reed make corruption arresting; all the
other performances (including Crowe's) are just boringly competent.
