Amanda Drake

Well I’m glad I saw it but ……. its predecessor is a classic and this is - at times - just plain silly and resembling something out of the Marvel stable of comic superheroes rather than a historically accurate plot set in Ancient Rome. Battling mythical wolf/babboons, riding “live” rhinoceroses into the stadium instead of chariots and evading a shiver (yes that’s the correct collective noun) of sharks that swim at the rate of heat-seeking missiles in a flooded Coliseum is just too idiotic! Let alone mighty battleships ramming castle walls in a couple of feet of water and secret stone entrances moving as smoothly as your 20th century secret library door in an Agatha Christie! The script is as nuanced as a Spider-Man sequel and the acting is as staged and melodramatic as Thor (actually probably worse)! Conversely though Russell Crow’s son has none of his father’s charisma nor presence! However if you just take it as a film made in the comic superhero genre it is quite entertaining!

“The Night Manager” trumps “The Night Agent” in every single conceivable way! I thoroughly recommend you watch the first and suggest you don’t waste any of your precious time watching the latter!