Does accuracy in a movie set in the past actually matter? When one historian pointed out errors in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, the director brusquely told him to “get a life”. But sifting fact from fiction, and plausible plotline from sheer fantasy, is part of the fun of watching a historical movie. Sorry, Ridley: you are as likely to stem the tide of incoming pedantry on Gladiator II as successfully defend yourself in combat against a troop of (implausibly) bloodthirsty baboons.

For weeks before Gladiator II opened, its trailer was already the subject of historical-accuracy scrutiny. In fact, the main culprit therein was not so much a matter of historical error as a crime against common sense: no, rhinos cannot be tamed, broken and ridden like horses. Could the Colosseum really be filled with water and made the scene of a mock sea battle?

Actually, that one is moot. Supposedly, the opening of the Colosseum in AD80 involved such an event, but it seems more likely that such extravaganzas would have been staged at another, more suitable location. Nothing about the remains of the building suggests that it was capable of being flooded and kept watertight. One thing is for sure, though: rich Romans may have done all kinds of things with elaborate seawater ponds (the magnate Crassus famously kept a pet eel and supposedly wept when it died), but harvesting and inserting man-killing sharks into the aforementioned mock sea battles was beyond them.

Five minutes for a trailer: two-and-a-half hours for the entire movie. It’s hard to know where to begin........

© The Guardian