Now well into his 80s, Ridley Scott shows no signs of a desire to retire. Scott put out two new feature films in 2021, with House of Gucci the second of this pair.

Based on Sara Gay Forden’s 2001 historical text, House starts in 1978 and introduces us to Patrizia Regianni (Lady Gaga), the daughter of a man who owns a small trucking company. When she meets fashion heir Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) at a party, she immediately sets her sights on him.

Despite the disapproval of Mauizio’s father Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons), the pair wed, and after a period of distance from the Gucci empire, Maurixio eventually comes back into the fold. Patrizia involves herself more and more in the family business, with much drama and intrigue along the way.

In theory, at least. As played out here, though, House seems oddly free from tension or much to actively involve the viewer.

Some folks who defended the film felt the critics judged House due to what they expected and not what they got. These opinions thought critics anticipated a high-brow Oscar-worthy drama and not the flashy, trashy crime thriller Scott wanted to make.

Which would be fair, but the movie isn't a flashy, trashy crime thriller. I'm honestly not sure what it intends to be, as the movie flits all over the place and really goes nowhere.

While it should concentrate on Patrizia's rise and fall, it spends far too much time with fairly extraneous domains and characters, most of which don't add up to much. The movie has no real flow or clear continuity.

It bops from one scene to another in a way that connects superficially - ie, the shifts don't seem jarring - but the whole narrative never comes together in a satisfying manner. It feels like Scott grabbed semi-random chapters from the source book, filmed them and edited them together with a shrug.

I love me some Gaga, so I wanted her to be great, but she's just good. Some of that stems from the limitations of the character, as the movie buries Patrizia with thankless scenes too much of the time.

If you've seen the trailers, you've seen most of Patrizia's interesting moments. For the film's lead, she seems oddly ignored much of the time.

The narrative plays out in a confusing manner and as noted, spends too much time with extraneous side journeys. Most of the scenes with Aldo and/or Paolo don't need to exist.

Pacino plays "the Al Pacino Character" much of the time, while Leto does what he does. He generates a lot of eccentric mannerisms and hopes that we'll view this collection of oddball quirks as an actual performance. It doesn't work.

This never becomes an unwatchable movie, but it gets less and less interesting as it goes, mainly because the general incoherence becomes more of a problem.

A flashy, trashy crime thriller would've been fun. House is just too boring most of the time, so if anyone expects a lurid potboiler, they'll encounter only disappointment with this fairly turgid drama.

House of Gucci appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. As expected, the film came with a solid visual presentation.

Overall sharpness pleased. Nary a smidgen of softness materialized, so we got a tight, precise image.

I saw no signs of jagged edges or moiré effects, and edge haloes remained absent. Print flaws also failed to manifest themselves.

Like most modern movies, House went for a mix of teal and amber. Trite as these colors seem, the Blu-ray reproduced them in a positive manner.

Blacks looked deep and dense, while shadows offered solid clarity and smoothness. This turned into a fine transfer.

A character movie like House didn’t offer a ton of room for auditory theatrics, but the DTS-HD MA 7.1 mix of House worked fine. Most of the soundfield stayed with general ambience, and that seemed satisfactory, as the movie brought out a nice sense of place.

On occasion, the film opened up a bit more, mainly via weather and some violent action. Those broader soundscape moments gave the flick a bit of a kick in the pants.

Audio quality worked fine, with speech that consistently came across as natural and distinctive. Music offered positive range and clarity.

Though they didn’t come with a ton to do, effects felt realistic and accurate. Low-end fared nicely on the occasions that the track went for deeper bass. All in all, the soundtrack suited the story.

Three featurettes fill out the disc, and The Rise of the House of Gucci runs 10 minutes, 14 seconds. It brings comments from director Ridley Scott, producer Giannina Scott, co-writer Roberto Bentivegna, prosthetics designer Göran Lundström, director of photography Dariusz Wolski, and actors Jared Leto, Salma Hayek, Lady Gaga, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, and Adam Driver.

We learn about the source and story/characters, cast and performances, and Scot’s approach to the material. A few decent notes emerge, but most of “Rise” feels like promotional fluff.

The Lady of the House spans five minutes, 35 seconds and involves Gaga, Driver, Ridley Scott, Giannina Scott, Bentivegna, Leto, Irons, Hayek, Pacino and producer Kevin J. Walsh.

As implied by the title, “House” looks at the film’s lead actor. If you expect anything more than gushing praise for Gaga, you’ll find disappointment – even a diehard Little Monster like me felt embarrassed by the tone of this information-free program.

Finally, Styling House of Gucci goes for five minutes, 26 seconds and features Gaga, Ridley Scott, Irons, Leto, Hayek, Wolski, costume designer Janty Yates, chief cutter Dominic Young, and production designer Arthur Max.

The program discusses costumes and sets/locations. A handful of useful insights appear, but most of “Styling” brings more of the same happy talk found in the first two shows.

With Ridley Scott behind the camera and multiple stars in front of it, House of Gucci promised a high-quality affair. Unfortunately, the final product lacks consistency and never becomes especially coherent or compelling. The Blu-ray offers very good picture and more than adequate audio but supplements seem sadly superficial. House remains watchable, but at 158 minutes, it can feel like an endurance test without great payoff.