Streaming on Prime Video - Rod Bishop checks out Ancient Rome in THOSE ABOUT TO DIE (Robert Rodat, Roland Emmerich, Marco Kreuzpaintner, USA/Germany/Italy 2024)

 

Anthony Hopkins top of the pile

Some budgets of high-end television series released this year (in US dollars): 

Shōgun, ($250 million, 10 eps); Masters of the Air, ($250 million, 8 eps); The Acolyte($180 million, 8 eps); 3 Body Problem ($160 million, 8 eps) and Fallout, ($153 million, 8 eps) - this series viewed by 65 million during its first 16 days on streaming platforms. 

The Marvel/Disney studio has been releasing its superhero television series for the last few years with similar budgets to its superhero films.

All-time top position, however, is The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022) coming in at $465 million for 8 episodes.

Makes the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones in 2019 ($90 million, 6 eps) seem almost cheap.

Those About to Die (US150 million, 10 eps), released last month, fits neatly into this pattern, perhaps another reflection of the post-Covid streaming audiences sitting in front of their giant 4K UHD home cinemas.

Being a sucker for great models and reconstructions of ancient cities - and leaving historical accuracy to one side - I found the simulated ‘drone’ shots of Rome in 79 AD in Those About to Die the most enthralling element in the series. Also the production design work in apartments, palaces, plebeian streets, bath houses, rowdy bars, betting shops, restaurants, and in the detail of the interiors and exteriors of Circus Maximus and the new Flavian Amphitheatre (the Colosseum).

Don’t be fooled by the series promotions, though. It’s not giving too much away to say Anthony Hopkins carks it a couple of episodes in. He has similar family problems to Richard Harris’s Caesar Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator. Hopkins does reappear - even better - in later flashbacks.

His screentime, however, is a long way behind the North Africans from Numidia: Kwame (Moe Hasim), his sisters Aura (Kyshan Wilson) and Jula (Alicia Ann Edogamhe), and their mother Cara (Sara Martins). There’s a bookmaker Tenax (Iwan Rheon), a trio of Spanish brothers trading horses, a ‘rock star’ charioteer Scorpus (Dimitri Leonidas) and Caesar’s sons Dolmitian (Jojo Macari in a mesmerizing, pouting performance that steals the show) and Titus (Tom Hughes, wooden and uncharismatic throughout). That puts Hopkins’ screentime behind at least eleven other actors.

Those About to Die can’t avoid the usual intrigues of Ancient Rome – the Senate plotting to overthrow Caesar, a son plotting to overthrow Caesar, the power of the elite patricians, the gladiators and the chariot races. It does take sex - of most varieties - to new levels and it heightens the pervading racism behind the slave trade. Some animals were apparently much larger in ancient times and while the horses look like our horses, the alligators and one particular white tiger are so huge, it's laugh-out-loud ridiculous.

Roman religion gets only cursory attention. Some assorted gods are named, the most prominent being the goddess of luck, Fortuna, cited many times in the betting saloons of the chariot races. The Vestal Virgins make a few odd appearances and they remain as mysterious as ever. For some reason, they are required to sit stoney faced below Caesar’s box throughout the gladiator death fights in the Colosseum.

Unsurprisingly, like Ancient Rome, the series is often overbearingly macho, particularly with Roland Emmerich directing half of it. Despite some valiant attempts, it fails to generate the nobility that so often graced Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. 

When your interest wanes during the long 10 hours, there’s always the great ancient Roman production design to look at – if you like that sort of thing.