Critic Reviews

That’s a lot of characters to keep track of, and while things bounce around like a “Ben-Hur” chariot, the series keeps you mightily entertained — even in its most ridiculous moments.

Its plot is an unceasing, at times disorienting, torrent of schemes and romances and betrayals, but as it progresses, the series achieves striking emotional depth in its study of violence, subjugation, and ambition.

Emmerich and Rodat rarely linger long enough on the story’s weaker parts to test our patience, and there’s just enough that works to keep us binging. Like a gladiator in the pit, the show earns a thumbs up to fight another day.

Delivers intrigue, deception, and coliseum carnage with an enthusiasm that’s offset by its derivativeness.

The gladiator combat and chariot races (plus Thrones veteran Iwan Rheon) are great, but they're just one fraction of an overstuffed series that tries too hard to cover every aspect of life in Rome during the early days of The Colosseum.

Ultimately, Those About to Die is not really for those people whose Roman Empire is the Roman Empire. It is for people who want the ancient world, where the stakes of sex and violence were far lower than the present day, to give licence to something primal, something carnal, in them. Emmerich doesn’t do subtle, and so Those About to Die is suitably, viscerally, bold.

If "Those About to Die" sometimes feels like a neutered, TV version of that project ["Gladiator 2"] – despite a budget reportedly north of $140 million – it's still entertaining enough for fans of violent period pieces to serve as a hearty appetizer to that likely full meal.

Subtle it isn’t. But for anyone counting down the days until the belated sequel to Ridley Scott’s epic hits our screens, this lavish alternate history lesson is a solid stopgap.

Those About to Die leans on big outrages because it’s not so good at small conflicts.

It's not the worst show to watch about chariot racers, gladiators, emperors, and the vicious Roman Empire, but one that's certainly inferior to the multiple classics the genre had to offer in the last few decades.