Other country stars have come and gone, but George Strait has essentially defined country music for more than 30 years. Now the Texas native is ending his touring career with a flourish, as he will perform the final show of his The Cowboy Rides Away Tour at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
The end of Strait's days on the road comes as no surprise; he had previously announced that this will be his last tour, even though he will continue to put out records. But the location of his final concert was in doubt until Monday's announcement at Jerry World.
Strait has already completed one leg of his farewell tour; the second leg, which starts January 9, 2014, in Bossier City, Louisiana, will hit 26 different cities. The actual date for his AT&T Stadium concert is not yet known, although it will most likely be in June 2014, as the final announced date of the tour is May 31 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
Strait plans to have one big country singer or band open for him at every stop, including Jason Aldean, Eric Church, Sheryl Crow, Ronnie Dunn, Vince Gill, Merle Haggard, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Martina McBride, Lee Ann Womack and Chris Young.
Although plans have not been announced for the final concert, it seems likely that most, if not all, of those stars will pay tribute in one way or another at that show.
Strait is still under contract for five more albums, so a few one-off concerts in the future wouldn't be a shock. The cowboy may be riding away, but staying away is harder than it seems.
There are some films for which making a sequel is natural, and others where a follow-up is wholly unnecessary. Gladiator, which made both tons of money and was named Best Picture at the Oscars, told an impactful stand-alone story that ended with the protagonist dead and no real loose ends. And yet because there’s always more money to be made, here we are 24 years later with Gladiator II.
The lead character this time around is Lucius (Paul Mescal), a general in a North African army who becomes a prisoner of war when the Roman army led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) bests him and his troops in battle. Taken back to Rome, he is put in the pool of captured men forced to fight at the Colosseum for the amusement of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracella (Fred Hechinger).
Lucius is controlled by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), an ambitious schemer who bets liberally on his prized fighter and always has an eye to move up in the world. Meanwhile, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the sister of Emperor Commodus from the first film, is now married to Marcus Acacius and has a unique connection with Lucius that is fairly obvious from the get-go.
Directed once again by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, the film commits a number of sins throughout its 150-minute running time, the most blatant of which is that, aside from a few embellishments, it essentially tells the same story as the first film. Lucius, like Maximus, is a deposed military leader who’s out for revenge on the person who killed his family. Instead of one obnoxious emperor, there are now two. And the only way for Lucius to earn his freedom is to fight his way out.
Stories told in the same world can echo each other and, if done well, overcome those similarities. But Gladiator II is shockingly boring for a purported sword-and-sandals epic. Scott and his team try to introduce new elements to the fights, like a gladiator riding a rhinoceros or a ship battle inside the Colosseum (with sharks!), but most of the sequences are inert with no propulsion to them.
The action fails because none of the relationships in the film amount to much. There are stand-out characters like Macrinus and the twin emperors, but instead of creating antipathy or strong feelings of triumph or defeat, the story just kind of happens without any sense of excitement or importance. Much of that issue lies at the feet of Lucius, who simply doesn’t inspire in the same way that Russell Crowe’s Maximus did.
Mescal is a fine actor who’s done good work in more intimate roles, but he’s not up to the task of being an action star, at least not in this film. Any bombast he shows with the character feels forced, and the story doesn’t give him enough opportunities to counteract that lack. Washington, however, fills up the screen with his charisma, and it’s during his scenes that the film comes closest to being rousing. Quinn and Hechinger are a lot of fun as the twin emperors, but in the end they feel like retreads of Joaquin Phoenix from the original.
Any sequel should have a purpose that sets it apart from what came before, but Scott, Scarpa, and the rest of their team fail in that respect in Gladiator II. It’s a mostly lifeless film that delivers scenes that would be exciting if they had any kind of good story to back them up.
