Gladiator II is big, loud spectacle writ large on screen by luminary director Ridley Scott, which means it’s in line with its predecessor from nearly 25 years ago. That doesn’t mean that it can be taken as seriously as the first movie. Trading in high drama for full on camp, Gladiator II is a raucous, admittedly very fun movie that arrives with a keen understanding that a sequel to the 2000 Oscar winning original is a silly idea. With Gladiator II, Scott throws everything he can at the screen to ensure viewers are suitably… entertained. Just don’t expect to dwell on a lot of this long after it ends.
The year is 200 A.D. and the Roman Empire is at its most powerful, but also in economic shambles thanks to its reckless, psychopathic twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). All of Geta and Caracalla’s greatest conquests can be traced to the work of General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), a tired man of the people who can see the writing on the wall. Unrest is growing amongst the poverty stricken people of Rome, and it’s going to be blown wide open with the arrival of a slave (Paul Mescal) from the empire’s latest conquest in North Africa. With nothing to lose after the death of his wife, the slave begins a quest for vengeance, demanding the head of Acacius. He’s purchased by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a high rolling, conniving, cunning, and flamboyant power player, who says he can make the young man’s bloodlust a reality. The trip to the Colosseum will not only bring him closer to his perceived foe, but also to the mother (Connie Nielsen, returning to reprise her role in the first film) who was forced to send him away.
Gladiator II gets off to a rocky start with a battle sequence that has a lot of bombast and some less than convincing CGI ships (something that actually plagues another action sequence later in the film), but the groundwork being laid by screenwriter David Scarpa (re-teaming with Scott after Napoleon and All the Money in the World) is suitably rousing. Scott wastes no time getting down to gruesome business, with the violence meter turned way up and the knob ripped off for this one. Heads, legs, and other limbs will roll with gleeful abandon, and from the very start it’s clear that Scott is operating in full on crowd pleaser mode and not like he’s making a prestige picture. Gladiator II seeks to be a full on recreation of the kind of entertainment that has persisted since the days of the Romans: a tawdry, bawdy, bloody free-for-all.
The plotting of Gladiator II is dense, but easy to decipher, even if it plays too coy with a grand reveal that won’t surprise anyone who knows what movie they bought a ticket for. The subtext is timely, but thin, pretty much coming down to the question of how one attains the “Roman dream” if none of the empire’s citizens are truly free of tyranny. The plot twists carry a certain degree of nostalgia when they arrive. They’re predictable, but handled like grand reveals from old school serials and adventure stories. If Gladiator was a movie with broad appeal and an adult mindset, Gladiator II is made for your inner, giddy teenager. It’s fun and funny in ways that set it apart from the original.
The performances nicely match the shift in tone that Scott and Scarpa are going for. Mescal is a highly capable hero, able to throw down with any enemy and deliver emotionally charged soliloquies whenever called upon to move the plot along with more than his chiseled abs and piercing eyes. Quinn and especially Hechinger are leaning into the camp as the drugged up despots. Washington steals the show with the most over-the-top performance of his career, annunciating every word to its final syllable (you’ll never forget the polish he puts on “politicsssssssssss”) and captivating the viewer with his character’s devious schemes and machinations, as duelling coups to overthrow the throne begin to collide and collapse. And for his part, Pascal provides the best traditionally dramatic performance, offering a nice and restrained counterpoint to the other cast members who are actively trying to out-crazy one another. Pascal is the anchor for this out of control ship, and his presence is necessary to keep things on track.
But outside of the performances, the focus of Scott in Gladiator II is on the brutality, and the hand-to-hand combat this time out is much improved and more elaborate. There’s battles on the sea, melees with drugged up animals, and even a spontaneous “exhibition” fight that includes a pretty great visual of smearing blood and crushed rose petals streaking out over marble floors. Historical accuracy be damned in Gladiator II, which has no basis in anything and only a tangential root in the original film, but what it does have is an amusing look into the nature of misplaced and misguided hubris. If Gladiator was about succeeding in the face of oppression, Scott’s sequel is embracing repeated failure and the lessons that can be learned from it. It’s not high art, but it’s also not nothing.
Gladiator II opens in theatres everywhere on Friday, November 22, 2024.
