PLOT: Sixteen years after the death of Maximus in the Coliseum, the now-grown Lucius (Paul Mescal), who is secretly the heir to the Roman Empire, finds himself enslaved and forced to fight in the Coliseum while Rome crumbles under the leadership of two tyrannical brothers, Emperor Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Emperor Caracalla (Fred Hechinger).
REVIEW: In my estimation, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator is one of the best historical dramas ever made. When it came out in 2000, it was immediately hailed as a classic, making star Russell Crowe a household name. In the twenty-four years since its release, it’s been often imitated but never equaled. Now, Ridley Scott is back for a lavish sequel, which is being rightly acclaimed as one of his best films in the last twenty years.
While Gladiator II isn’t the instant classic the original was, it’s nonetheless a highly entertaining, faithful sequel, jam-packed with action and spectacle. There hasn’t been a lavish, action-driven historical drama done on this scale in some time, with Scott, despite his advancing age, as energetic and kinetic a director as ever.
One thing that surprised me about Gladiator II is how directly it follows the original (as opposed to early sequel concepts – which were more out there). Given the intervening years, one might have assumed Ridley Scott would have made it more of a standalone entry, but instead, it demands that audiences be very familiar with the original. The animated opening credits portray several of the original film’s classic sequences to refresh the audience’s memory. Still, Scott and writer David Scarpa clearly expect audience members to remember the original quite well.
It would be interesting to watch them back to back, as Scott’s done his best to recapture the flavour and style of the first film. He even repurposes a few minutes of Hans Zimmer’s original score despite the composer passing on composing duties to Harry Gregson-Williams. This gives the film a nice sense of continuity, as does the fact that the movies also share the same DP, John Mathieson, while some of the original cast members, including Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi, are back.
One key difference between the two movies is that Gladiator II is less of a hero’s journey for Paul Mescal’s Lucius, with the film not anchored on him like the original was on Crowe. He’s more part of an ensemble here, with Lucius’s journey from family man to slave to Gladiator seeming to take place over a matter of months rather than the years Maximus toiled in the arena.
Mescal’s gotten himself into amazing shape here and really excels in the action scenes, with one hand-to-hand battle early on, which takes place in the home of a Roman senator, especially good. If anything, Gladiator II is even more action-heavy than the original, with Scott opting for wilder set pieces meant to evoke Rome’s growing depravity. Mescal fights everything from rhinos to sharks to baboons this time, although the issue with the bigger set pieces is that Lucius starts to come off as almost a superhero, as opposed to the very mortal Maximus.
Much of the film focuses on Denzel Washington’s Macrinus, a former slave who, over the course of the film, uses his wealth and power in a Machiavellian scheme to take over Rome. Washington, playing a rare villain, seems like he’s having the time of his life as the constantly scheming former slave. Yet, Washington never makes him a cartoon character, with him kind of the other side of the coin compared to Richard Harris’s Marcus Areulius in the first film, with the two sharing a vision for a new Rome, even if the latter’s is more apocalyptic.
Pedro Pascal also has a good role as the new husband of Nielsen’s Lucilla, a sympathetic Roman general who, through a twist of fate, finds himself marked for death by Lucius, with their climactic battle in the arena being an inevitability. Pascal fits nicely into the period epic milieu and could likely lead a film like this on his own, with him doing a good job depicting the character’s torn loyalties. Finally, Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger have fun as the two depraved emperors who make Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus seem reasonable by comparison.
While Gladiator II doesn’t quite gain the instant classic status it aspires to, it’s still a brilliantly made historical epic with a superb ensemble cast and some amazing action. The 150-minute running time blazes by (perhaps too quickly – I hope there’s a longer cut someday) and leaves the door open for a third film, which might do a nice job rounding out what could be a great trilogy about the fall of the Roman Empire. As it is, this is one of the most purely entertaining films of the year and a must-see for fans of the original.