Awake not Woke!

The opening battle scenes sets the tone for the bad writing immediately. A city built literally right into the ocean surf deep enough to allow large ships to sail right up to the walls unimpeded. There are no double walls to repel invaders as was common. Massive breach towers raise up magically out of nowhere on the ships. Next is the laughable baboon gladiator scene. The CG looks terrible and the baboons look like something out of a zombie movie. It's historically inaccurate and baboons are many time stronger than humans, there is no way a shackled person is going to win in a 1 on 1 against an angry baboon. It gets worse when the Rhino riding gladiator shows up. Then the utter nonsense that is the gladiator filled ships battling it out in a shark infested water filled arena. WTF! This is NOT a sequel but a shameless remake and a soulless copy of the original. Pascal is horribly miscast and just not good here. His character is annoyingly pathetic and spends most of the movie looking like he's about to cry. Mescal as the lead is boring and a far cry from the performance put op by Crowe. Washington again is miscast and appears to embrace the stupidity by comically hamming it up most of the time. Everything is so over the top ridiculous and unrealistic it might as well have been marketed as fantasy and throw in some dragons to fight as well. Then there is the woke. DEI everywhere again. Black people were not common in Rome at the time. The Numidian people shown as very diverse with a lot of blacks were not in fact black. Macrinus was North African and not black so casting Washington for a historical character is race swapping. While Rome did incorporate North African people into their empire they were white not sub Saharan as shown here and there were not black people in the Senate. There are also females shown in full legionnaire outfit fighting along side the men. There were no female Legionnaires in Ancient Rome. I've seen people mention female gladiators. I didn't see any but maybe I missed it somehow. Overall unless you are one of those people that like to slow down to stare at a car wreck I would not recommend wasting time on this.

DEI FBI agent and at the end links January 6th to domestic terrorism

Weak argument and woke megacombo.

Starts with an atheist nun that interrogates a Dracula victim. The nun is the main protagonist, she is perfect, infalible and is a walking deus ex machina. Dracula is evil without motivation, he is just an excuse to make the protagonist shine. The story has no sense, no motivation and does not tell anything interesting. Consists of 3 chapters of more or less 90 minutes. Chapter 1. Perfect nun interrogates dumb lawyer that has been "draculized". She explains him what and how happened because she knows everything and never misses anything. After the interrogatory (more than a half of the chapter) Dracula comes to the church and want to enter. What for? Just to be bullyed by the supernun! Since the show must go on, Dracula makes his way in the church by making the draculized lawyer allow him to enter. Then he kills everybody except the lawyers fiance and the supernun. The supernun survives just because he just sucks some blood but does not kill him because we need the protagonist alive. Chapter 2. Several people on a ship. Dracula initially says that he will need 4 weeks to reach UK. Kills almost everybody in 3 days before being trapped at the UK coast the day 4. Deus ex machina as a superspeed ship in action! Of course, all men are superdumb, and the nun was on the ship half dead until she recovers magically in next scene just to confront dracula. We also have an Indian doctor with a disabled daughter. The daughter does not speak and is deaf, she is there just for inclusion policies, her only role is to unalive herself with poison. Other interesting passengers are recently married couple that travel with their black assistant... and he is the lover of... Right! The guy! (double point). He also is well dressed and educated, he even explains that he is not a servant and not a slave, dies pathetically after being fooled by Dracula. Chapter 3. Dracula wakes up 123 years after being "defeated" by the nun. Not the nun has a descendent that is exactly her (even the same super deus ex machina powers). After trapping him and releasing him Dracula meets a "pretty" (that is what everybody says, supposedly) girl that is "very popular" (she fucks with everybody because she is strong and independet) and will marry a noname guy that she just met cheating on her "boyfriend". Don't ask me about the logic. Even having a future husband, she meets every night with dracula and he sucks her blood, eventually transforming her in a vampire. After being incinerated, she revives because she is "undead" and goes to see Dracula for a dinner. She appears and interrupts the nun and her exboyfriend talking with dracula. Since she is desfigured, the exboyfriend kills her. Note that Dracula didn't care about her phisical appearence. Then the nun says the exboyfriend to leave and convinces Dracula to suicide. END. Yes, it is as random as it seems. You cannot avoid to cheer for Dracula, despite being egoistic, evil and narcicist. How bad is the protagonist, the nun, if you feel more confortable with the antagonist?

Okay, I started watching this one with zero expectations, and honestly, it was pretty easy for me to rate it for this site. Right from the beginning, the protagonist kicks off with that heavy moralizing: the classic "this is what you should do, and this is what you shouldn't" stuff you see in militant-style writing that tries to lecture you on how to behave. But the character quickly slams into reality, and that actually made me want to keep watching. It's not a high-quality movie by any means. It’s got a ton of plot holes, but it’s decent enough to just kick back and kill some time with. Is it woke? Yeah, it is. But not in that unbearable, preachy, "let me educate you" way. The main character is a messed-up person, and you're not really supposed to identify with him. As for the quality: This is obviously subjective, but for me it’s a pretty mediocre popcorn flick. Some parts are actually immersive and make you think (if they’d gone deeper with it, it would’ve been way better), and other parts are funny. Though you’re not sure if they meant it to be or not that way. I wouldn’t recommend it because there’s nothing really new or fresh here, but it’s watchable for a one-time viewing.