“Gladiator II” looks magnificent. Denzel Washington effortlessly steals every scene he is in and all but winks at us to show how much he is enjoying it. But the script is weak and too repetitive , the movie is too long, and the fight scenes, no matter how staged, just get numbing after a while. When I saw it, the audience was so disconnected from the storyline that they laughed at an admittedly corny reveal that was clearly a turning point that puts one of the main characters in danger.

For those who still remember the details of 2000’s Oscar-winning “Gladiator,” starring Russell Crowe, this film takes place a generation later, with only one returning main character aside from a couple of brief flashbacks and Derek Jacobi in a few scenes as a member of the political elite.

Connie Nelson is back as Lucilla, the royal daughter of the idealistic Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who was murdered by his son and her brother in the first film. She is now married to Rome’s top soldier, Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal).

We get a few minutes of blissful farm life in a remote village before the Roman navy arrives to take it over and the farmer and his beautiful and beloved wife have to suit up as soldiers. We know what happens to peaceful farmers and beautiful, beloved wives in these kinds of movies. Indeed, this is pretty much a replay of the first “Gladiator,” except this time the beautiful wife is also a fierce soldier. No big difference, though, because she gets killed off to fuel what we will later hear is the farmer’s biggest asset as an arena fighter, not strength or skill but rage.

That assessment of the farmer (Mescal) comes from Macrinus (Washington), who runs the gladiator program, wears only the finest glam. He is a trusted purveyor of news and rumors to everyone in Rome, especially Geta (Joseph Quinn of “Stranger Things”) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger of “Thelma”), the decadent young emperor-brothers who whine and lounge around in white face make-up except when they are enjoying the bloody battles in the colosseum. When the farmer-turned fighter says what he wants is a chance to cut off Acacius’ head, Macrinus tells him he will have it, and his freedom, too, if he succeeds in the arena.

Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal are two of the most charismatic, versatile, and talented actors in movies. Mescal can make a smile convey more than a page of dialogue and Pascal has unmatchable comic timing, but the one-dimensional characters they play do not give them a chance to show us their best. Instead, they have distractingly bulked up, like Popeye after the spinach. They look great in those Roman skirts, especially in the fight scenes, but even they cannot make the wooden dialogue and awkward plot twists work.

So much for the plot. Some people may want to make parallels between the fall of Rome and some of today’s headlines, but it won’t get you very far. I’m not going to give away the not-much-of-a-twist, which is in the trailer, so if you don’t want to know, don’t peek. In fact, you might do better to watch the without sound (you’d miss the score but you’d also miss the sounds of bones crunching and blood spurting). The dialogue is clunky and the storyline is hackneyed. The fans who come for the spectacle and pageantry will do fine, though, as director Ridley Scott and production designer Arthur Max make all of the long shots very impressive. Those who are there for the fight scenes will appreciate the variety — swords, of course, and attacks by crazed monkeys, sharks, and a rhino.

For me, though, it started to feel more like a game than a story and much too long.

Parents should know that this film has extended, very graphic violence with many characters injured and killed and many, many disturbing bloody images and sounds including decapitation. Characters drink alcohol and use drugs. A character essentially commits suicide. There is a reference to venereal disease.

Family discussion: Was rage the gladiator’s most valuable quality? How were the gladiator and the general alike?

If you like this, try: “Gladiator” with Russell Crowe

August Wilson wrote a play for each of the decades of the 20th century, all set in Pittsburgh and all exploring themes of race, family, and generational trauma. Denzel Washington, who starred in “Fences” on Broadway and directed and starred in the 2106 film that featured Viola Davis in her Oscar-winning role and produced “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” also starring Davis, who nominated for an Oscar, along with her co-star, Chadwick Boseman. This third in the series is a family story on screen and behind the camera, produced by Washington, directed by his son Malcolm Washington (who adapted the screenplay with Virgil Williams), starring his other son, John David Washington (“BlackkKlansman”), and his wife Pauletta and daughter Olivia in small roles.

The lesson here is not about someone learning how to play the piano. It is the struggle between Charles family siblings who represent two polar opposite views on history, heritage, and obligation. John David Washington and Danielle Deadwyler give sizzling performances as Boy Willie and Berniece (her name possibly a reference to a character in The Member of the Wedding).

Boy Willie, described by Wilson as “brash and impulsive, talkative and somewhat crude in speech and manner,” arrives at the Pittsburgh home shared by Berniece, her young daughter, and their Uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson). He is uninvited, unannounced, unexpected, and unwanted. He and his friend Lymon (Ray Fisher) have driven a truck filled with watermelons from their rural community in Mississippi. Boy Willie’s plan is to sell the watermelons to get the money to buy property. It is more than a chance to be his own boss. The property was once owned by the Sutter family that enslaved his ancestors. The Sutter patriarch has just died by falling into his well.

The Sutter family also once owned a piano they got in exchange for slaves, separating a mother and child of the Charles family from the husband and father, a gifted carpenter, who was considered too valuable to sell. He carved his family’s history into the piano, and a later generation stole it from the Sutters. Now it is in the living room of Berniece’s home. The conflict in the play is between Berniece, who does not play the piano but refuses to sell it because of what it represents about the pain, skill, courage of her family. Boy Willie is determined to sell it so he can build a future which in his mind also honors the family history. If stealing the piano was a triumph over enslavement and abuse, owning the Sutter property is even more so.

Washington is a mesmerizing performer and his Boy Willie is electric, charismatic, and dangerous. Deadwyler has a quieter role, especially in the first half of the film, but gets a chance to show Berniece’s fiery determination. Wilson, always a master of creating arresting, complex characters, has two of his best in the two siblings. A conventional story would have the widowed Berniece find a happy ending with the preacher who loves her (Cory Hawkins, excellent as always). But Wilson’s plays grab onto big, existential issues and he did not hesitate to go to extremes to demonstrate the intensity of his characters’ struggles. When does your family history support you? When does it weigh you down? What do you do when the answer is both?

Parents should know that this film has strong language, including many uses of the n-word. Characters drink and smoke. There are references to the sad death of a husband and father and to the abuses and deprivations of enslavement and bigotry. The story also includes some supernatural/horror events with disturbing images.

Family discussion: Who is right, Berniece or Boy Willie? What could they have said to better explain why they felt so strongly? Does your family have a cherished heirloom and who cares the most about it?

If you like this, try: “Fences” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”

The “Jumanji” team has not managed to match the same mixture of fantasy and heart, but Christmas spirit boosts their latest production to the level of solid family entertainment. Director Jake Kasden and star Dwayne Johnson have managed to turn the saga of the North Pole’s most beloved character into an action film, with Santa (code name: Red One) kidnapped on Christmas Eve. Who can save him? The Rock, of course, with some help from Captain America’s Chris Evans and Charlie’s Angel Lucy Liu.

Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons is in the title role, not fat, not jolly, but kind, wise, generous (emotionally, not to mention all those gifts). He truly loves all children, and as for adults, even the least lovable are dear to him because he sees the child they once were.

Johnson plays Callum Drift (was that intended to be a parody of an action hero name?), head of security and Santa’s most trusted colleague. But Drift insists this will be his last Christmas sleigh ride. After literally hundreds of years in the job, he has become cynical, not about the children but about the adults, who seem increasingly selfish and corrupt. For the first time, the naughty list is longer than the nice list, and he’s lost that Christmas spirit.

This is one of the film’s worst decisions. Johnson is an endlessly charismatic and charming screen presence, but here he is playing a character who is depressed and grim. It’s like he turned down the pilot light of his personality, and not in a fun way. And did he steal toys from the toy store? We don’t see him paying for them as he goes out through the supply room.

When Santa is kidnapped, Callum is on the job, reporting to Zoe (Liu), who oversees all magical characters. She assigns him to work with a Level 4 on the Naughty List named Jack (Evans), a Dark Web specialist and hacker with a gambling problem. He provided the geographic coordinates to the kidnapper without knowing what they would be used for.

Poor decision number two is the choice of bad guy. No spoilers, but both the casting and the reason for the kidnapping are not as compelling as they should be. And Liu has an underwritten part that is mostly striding purposively and monotone orders. That does not matter much because we are there for the action, and there is plenty, especially if you see the movie in a theater equipped with an immersive 4KD experience, so your seat will rumble in the car scenes and shake when the characters are in Santa’s sleigh. And I mean SHAKE. Plus some spritzing in your face. At a couple of points I thought the guy behind me was kicking my seat, but it was the 4KD.

Here’s a good decision: Chris Evans. He understands the assignment. He is playing Jack, a guy who literally steals candy from a baby — while he is orchestrating a sophisticated hacking job that involves setting a fire as a distraction so he can grab an employee ID. He is a terrible father to his son, Dylan (Wesley Kimmel), both neglecting him and encouraging him to take revenge on a friend and follow his dad’s example into a life of crime. Sounds like someone needs to learn the true meaning of Christmas! Evans handles the action scenes and is a master of the rhythms of comedy. He draws our eyes his way in every scene.

The fight scenes and special effects hit the sweet spot between fun and scary. There are attacking snowmen and a visit to Krampus (Kristofer Hivju), who used to punish naughty children on Christmas as Santa was leaving gifts for the good ones, according to German legend. Nick Kroll plays the intermediary who connected the villain to Jack and is now hanging out on a tropical island.

It wants us to feel the warmth of the season, but it takes it for granted that Christmas is universally celebrated and that it is mostly about the presents. Some of the jokes are pretty lightweight (Cullum asks Jack, “Do I look human?” and there are two jokes about Jack’s wanting a life-size Wonder Woman action figure and two about essential oils). Some are outright groaners (don’t bother to pay attention to what ELF stands for or notice the license plate on the snowmen’s van). There is a nice lesson about how every choice is an opportunity to decide who you are and which list will have your name on it. With a few better choices, this could have been a holiday classic.

Parents should know that this film has extended peril and action with some scary monsters. Characters use strong and crude language and drink alcohol.

Family discussion: Can you remember a decision that helped you decide who you are? Why was Jack a bad father?

If you like this, try: “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”

Jesse Eisenberg wrote, directed, and stars in “A Real Pain” but gave the showiest role to Kieran Culkin, who gives one of the best performances of the year.

Eisenberg, a careful writer with an excellent ear for what people say, and the spaces left by what they don’t say, gives the film a title with an illuminating double meaning. There’s the colloquial use for someone or something that is annoying, frustrating, but generally in a minor way. It is sometimes said with affection, sometimes with impatience, sometimes both. Then there is the more literal recognition of two words of enormous portent. This is a movie about pain, about generational pain caused by historic trauma and by internal, very individual struggles. It is about the pain we bear and the more difficult challenge of the pain we witness but cannot fix.

David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin) Kaplan are close but very different first cousins who are on a Heritage Tour of Poland, a small group led by a British historian, visiting locations related to the Holocaust. They are planning to leave the tour a day early to stop at what was once the home of their late grandmother, a Holocaust survivor.

David is intentional and careful. He worries constantly, which makes it difficult for him to feel comfortable around new people. Benji is impulsive, with volatile moods and no filters. He is often annoying, but he is genuinely curious about other people and warmly sympathetic, and authentically vulnerable, which makes people feel comfortable, even protective.

As the trip begins, David leaves a series of voicemails for Benji with advice and encouragement and concern. Meanwhile, Benji is at the airport early, chilling (or maybe he just has nowhere else to be). The tour guide is James (Will Sharpe), who begins by telling the group he is not Jewish but very interested in the culture and history. The other people on the tour are Marcia (Jennifer Grey), a recent divorcee, a retired married couple, Diane (Liza Sadovy) and Mark (Daniel Oreskes), and Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan), a survivor of the genocide in Rwanda and convert to Judaism.

The inherent impossible conflicts of a trip like this (based on one Eisenberg and his wife took) are handled exceptionally well in the film, often explicitly. Benji objects to first class train travel en route to a tour of a concentration camp, compared to the horrific cattle car transport of the people the trip is attempting to honor. He’s right and he’s wrong, of course. Would walking to the site be more respectful? Is there any accommodation today’s visitors could make that would not be somehow disrespectful? In another moment, Benji tells James he is throwing too many facts and statistics at them. Again, he’s both right and wrong. While history is essential for understanding the past, it is impossible to find an appropriate context for paying the right (if there is such a thing) kind of respect to those who suffered and perished. There will always be survivor guilt, but anyone who thinks skipping dinner or traveling economy — or immersing themselves in numbers and names — will assuage that burden is in denial. And Benji, by the way, stalks out of the first class car with a superior edge, and then ends up traveling first class anyway, laughing at his pretension.

Benji wants a picture of himself doing a silly pose on a huge statue memorializing the Warsaw uprising, the largest armed Jewish rebellion against the Nazis, insensitive. David finds that insensitive and disrepectful. At first, the others in the group do, too, but then they join in, finding some release in pretending to be part of the heroic response to oppression. As James reminds them, this is just one example that refutes the claims that Jews were docile in response to the horrors of the Holocaust. So perhaps the silly pretense of fighting alongside the Jews confined to the Warsaw ghetto eased the tension and helped the group bond.

The challenge of comfortable 21st century American tourists visiting sites from the Holocaust in a manner that is meaningful is juxtaposed with the very personal conflicts between David and Benji. Both struggle with anxiety. David takes medication, does meditation, and has established a satisfying life with a wife and son (played by Eisenberg’s real-life son, Banner). He has a job, though it is one Benji thinks is useless. And he worries about Benji. Their grandmother, who died a few months earlier, left money for the two of them to visit her home in Poland. Benji has been rudderless, without a job or family, self-medicating with weed. David hopes that bringing Benji on the trip will help him get some distance from his grief and give him something to do.

When David’s patience runs out, Eisenberg delivers a beautiful speech to the rest of the group about his love, frustration, worry, and his envy for Benji’s easy ability to connect and endear himself to everyone he meets. Like Norman Maclean in the book and movie “A River Runs Through It,” Eisenberg recognizes that:

We can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them – we can love completely without complete understanding.

Parents should know that this movie has mature material including historical references to the Holocaust, very strong language, smoking, drinking, and drugs. The characters discuss a sad death and a suicide attempt.

Family discussion: Who from this group would you rather travel with? How can we best show respect for the past?

If you like this, try: the “Trip” trilogy starring Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan

To honor our veterans, John Holway’s oral history ebook, Bloody Ground: Black Rifles in Korea, is available at no cost from November 11-15.

Korea is “the forgotten war.” But to those who fought in it, it was the “unforgettable war.” If the names of all those killed were put on a wall, it would be larger than the Vietnam Wall. And Korea lasted only three years, Vietnam about ten. The agony of the winter of 1950-51 is an epic to compare with Valley Forge and the Bulge. Holway writes:

Korea was also our last segregated war. This is the story of the black 24th Infantry Regiment, told in the words of the men themselves. Like all black troops since the Civil War, they were reviled by whites and their own commander for “bugging out” – running before the enemy. The charge can still be read in the Army’s own official histories. Yet the 24th left more blood on the field than their white comrades – if they did bug out, they must have been running the wrong way.

It’s a good thing we weren’t with Custer,” one black GI muttered – “they’d have blamed the whole thing on us.”

The 24th won the first battle of the war, won its division’s first Medal of Honor, and guarded the shortest and most vulnerable road to Pusan. If the port had fallen, the war would have been lost, leaving a red dagger pointed at Japan. It did not fall.

That winter, after the Chinese attacked, the entire American army bugged out in perhaps the worst military disaster in American history. “That,” said another black veteran, “was when I learned that whites could run as fast as blacks.”

This is the story of those unsung heroes, who helped turn the Communist tide for the first time. The men bring that forgotten war and their own unsung bravery to life in their own sometimes funny, often heart-breaking, and always exciting words.