Are we less bloodthirsty than our predecessors? Has human nature changed since the days when crowds cheered the slaughter of slaves in the arenas of ancient Rome? Hollywood executives clearly don’t think so.
They have spent a reported $310 million on Ridley Scott’s new swords-and-sandals epic Gladiator II, which opened this weekend and is expected to crush its box-office competitors.
Although the film left The Times critic Kevin Maher cold, I’m looking forward to seeing its account of one of the lesser-known episodes in Rome’s blood-stained history, the rivalry of the brothers Caracalla and Geta in the early third century AD. In the film, the two men are played by rising stars Fred Hechinger and Joseph Quinn, boasting weirdly dyed hair, unhealthily pale