WENLEI MA: Roman Empire series Those About to Die is not entertaining enough to be distracting

In September, a Swedish influencer alerted the world (ie. the internet) to an alarming fact. Apparently, men think about the Roman Empire a lot. There’s a deep-seated obsession with aqueducts we just weren’t aware of.

There must be throngs of gents who are studiously reading Tacitus by lamplight, so they would never feel the humiliation of confusing Agrippina the Younger with her mother, Agrippina the Elder, during those chats on the golf course about the Julio-Claudian dynasty. That’s what happens on the green, right?

The producers behind Those About to Die, a new series out today on Prime, would’ve been in production in September, watching it all play out, and loving it sick.

They probably thought they hit pay dirt, because isn’t that exactly what they were making? Swords? Check. Sandals? Check. Gladiatorial combats staged in obvious CGI environments? Check.

For Those About to Die, the discovery of all those Roman empire-obsessed men works in its favour, as does its release four months before Gladiator II. All those fanboys hanging out for Ridley Scott’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning epic can momentarily satiate their bloodlust with Those About to Die, which could generously be called Gladiator-lite.

Based on Daniel P. Mannix’s book (which also inspired Gladiator), the streaming series adds a raft of characters into this exploration of ancient Roman games and the business of entertaining the masses so they’re less aware of other important things like starvation and the decline of Rome’s power.

Mannix’s book was interested in the system and processes of the games, so the series inserts characters into the story to make it narrative fiction. Many of them really existed, including Emperor Vespasian, played by Anthony Hopkins, the last of the four rulers in a period known as the Year of the Four Emperors.

Vespasian was a stabling influence after but the Romans were already so hooked on gladiatorial games that he built the Flavian Amphitheatre, which we now know better as the Colosseum.

He has a succession battle on his hands. Elderly and aware of his mortality, Vespasian has to make a choice between his two sons – Titus (Tom Hughes), a military commander, and Domitian (Jojo Macari), a wily politician.

Elsewhere, there’s Tenax (Iwan Rheon), a plebian who has hustled his way from the streets to be a gambling entrepreneur, and Scorpus (Dimitri Leonidas), a superstar chariot racer.

The unwieldy plot jumps around from the arena and grand rooms to corridors and dank places of ill-repute but everywhere you turn, people are scheming.

In Rome, as we’ve learnt from Gladiator, Spartacus, HBO series Rome and countless other tales of the era, life is expendable, its only value is to what someone else can get for it – as an enslaved person, as fodder in the arena and as an extension of the privileged’s power and ambition.

Those About to Die is the first TV series from filmmaker Roland Emmerich who is known for his big-screen blockbusters including The Day After Tomorrow, White House Down and Moonfall.

Like the emperors in his story, Emmerich is about the spectacle which includes set-pieces involving lions and fragile human bodies. But, sometimes, spectacle is used as a device to distract. For Rome’s ruling classes, the gladiatorial arena kept people from directing their rage at the real targets. In Those About to Die, it’s supposed to distract from the fact the series is unwieldy and frequently boring.

Emmerich said he was inspired by Game of Thrones, particularly by the show’s scope and look. Apparently, he didn’t realise before 2011 that small-screen stories can be “cinematic”.

He certainly tried to ape Game of Thrones’ ambition as well as some of GoT’s poorly lit scenes. There are many moments in Those About to Die where you have to squint to make out who was talking to whom. And so much bad CGI.

There are aspects of ancient Rome that are super interesting, especially the political machinations, and maybe that snark about reading Tacitus was a little premature because he managed to capture a complex city and political class that is still, admittedly, fascinating. Even if you don’t need to think about it all the time.

And not for nothing, but the idea that all these men are allegedly obsessed with the Roman empire to the point of weekly reflections really speaks to the Western-centric view of history. A lot of innovation and betrayal was also happening elsewhere in the world.

Anyway, Those About to Die is so dull.

While Nero wasn’t literally playing the fiddle while Rome burned, the parable was always about entertainment and distraction. If only Those About to Die was entertaining enough to distract. Anything interesting it has to say has all been done before, it’s bringing nothing new to the space.

It’s another Roman Empire title that if you cut out a random two-minute scene, and it didn’t feature Hopkins, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish it from any other entry in its genre.

Those About to Die is streaming on Amazon Prime Video