PLOT: An epic drama set in the corrupt world of the spectacle-driven gladiatorial competition, exploring a side of ancient Rome never before told — the dirty business of entertaining the masses, giving the mob what they want most…blood and sport. The series introduces an ensemble of characters from all corners of the Roman Empire who collide at the explosive intersection of sports, politics, and dynasties.
REVIEW: The recent release of the Gladiator II trailer proves that the spectacle and grandeur of the Roman Empire make for fascinating storytelling. Influenced by epics like Spartacus, Cleopatra, and Ben-Hur, the arenas and gladiatorial combat have rarely been as good as they have been on the big screen. Returning to the book that inspired David Franzoni’s initial script for Ridley Scott’s 2000 Best Picture-winning feature film, Those About To Die takes a deeper dive into the politics and machinations of Rome during the first century. With a diverse cast replicating the massive empire’s varied denizens, this series feels like Game of Thrones without the dragons. Full of violence, nudity, and a fair amount of backstabbing and melodrama, Those About To Die fails to embrace the scale that made Gladiator a critical and box office hit despite having blockbuster filmmaker Roland Emmerich aboard as director and producer.
Where Gladiator focused on the conflict between Maximus rising from defeat to face off against Commodus, Those About To Die has half a dozen narrative threads to follow over the course of the ten-episode first season. At the forefront is the competition between the children of Emperor Vespasian (Anthony Hopkins). On one side is the elder son and experienced soldier Titus (Tom Hughes); on the other is the duplicitous and conniving Domitian (Jojo Macari). Both have skills that would make them leaders in the true annals of Roman history, but their rise to power is influenced by dramatic license that helps add to the details of this story. As the brothers and their father try to appease the crumbling control they have over their sprawling empire, we see various angles and class levels at play, which seem to center around the gladiatorial and chariot races, which are the main sports of the time period. Tenax (Iwan Rheon) manages a chariot team featuring Scorpus (Dmitri Leonidas) with aspirations to have their own faction. Kwame (Moe Hashim) is a warrior who becomes a slave and gladiator as he tries to free his sisters. Their mother, Cala (Sara Martins-Court), travels to Rome to free her three children and is embroiled with Tenax and the rest.
The series does not stop there as we see the far-flung distances of the Roman Empire. Each episode boasts multiple on-screen titles indicating antiquated names of regions, cities, and outposts. Most of these will not register any familiarity for the audience with Rome as the sole recognizable location. The cast includes so many other actors, including Rupert Penry-Jones, Gabriella Pession, Lara Wolf, Johannes Haukur Johannesson, Angeliqa Devi, and more, as the poor aim for freedom, the plebians squabble for power, and the powerful murder their way to more power. With many of these faces, aside from Game of Thrones veteran Iwan Rheon and Sir Anthony Hopkins, it is hard to invest in the story, which suffers from big ambitions but a limited budget. Most of the wide shots of vast Imperial-controlled lands suffer from mediocre CGI. The same can be said for the lions, tigers, and other wild animals that feature in the excess of the bread and circuses central to the 79 A.D. period. What does not seem to suffer is the plentiful nudity that feels like it is used to try and compensate for the lack of interesting narrative elements.
Iwan Rheon is well cast as Tenax, playing the character as amoral but not solely a villain either. Rheon has struggled to escape the shadow of his memorable performance as Ramsay Bolton and is one of the more interesting parts of this series. Equally, Moe Hashim and Sara Martins-Court provide the closest we have to heroes as the protagonists rarely seen in epics like this: Roman slaves of color. Djimon Honsou provided that role in Gladiator, but here, Hashim’s Kwame provides a Maximus-level character worth rooting for while Martins-Court develops into the most interesting part of this series by the finale. On the other side of the power spectrum, Jojo Macari somehow plays a despicable royal prince who is a blend of Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus and Malcolm McDowell’s Caligula. You will hate him as much as audiences hated Joffrey on Game of Thrones, but even Macari’s smug smirk begins to wear thin halfway through the ten-episode season.
Created by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Robert Roday (Saving Private Ryan), Those About To Die is closer to the scribe’s work on 10,000 BC and Thor: The Dark World than his historical epic The Patriot. Rodat has experience with television, having created Falling Skies for producer Steven Spielberg. Still, with this series, he tries to display every excess of Rome, but none of it feels as grand or decadent as the two-season HBO series about the same era. Without any major stars and Anthony Hopkins attached to lend some credibility to this cast, it falls to Independence Day director Roland Emmerich and helmer Marco Kreuzpaintner. Both directors helm five episodes each, providing the series with visual continuity. Still, the budgetary restraints mean that most scenes are shot within back alleys or closely within arenas to avoid the scale becoming a visual issue. When landscape shots are needed, they are used for establishing purposes only to avoid breaking the suspension of disbelief this series tries desperately to hold onto.
Those About To Die struggles to balance the historical accuracy of life in 79 A.D. with the complexities and dramatic tension needed for a long-format television series. There are characters in this series worth rooting for and despicable ones you will hate. The violence is explicit, and the action is well-choreographed. But that is all established in the premiere episode and repeated with minimal variation for ten episodes. Those About To Die is one of Peacock’s most visually ambitious projects, and it also says a lot about the limitations put on streaming series these days. I wanted to like Those About To Die but felt bored and underwhelmed. This series asked if I was entertained, and I responded with a big thumbs down.
Those About To Die premieres on July 18th on Peacock.