‘Gladiator II’ review

Few directors continue to push out the same level of quality in all their films as Ridley Scott. While tonally he can swing in many directions, as seen in recent epics of his like The Last Duel and Napoleon—both of which straddle a line that makes them more interesting than they appear on the surface—Scott’s strong visual direction tends to illuminate on the tonal approach of his films and often elevates them from mere costume dramas to lavish productions that try to dig deeply into their central characters. However, coming back to the well once more with Gladiator II - the sequel to one of the many impactful cultural touchstones in his career - Scott’s latest ambitious spectacle struggles to overcome a case of diminishing returns with a familiar retread of violent delights cast under the shadow of conniving political machinations.

The difficulties Scott faces are almost immediately apparent. Gladiator II begins with a battle that directs the course of Hanno’s (Paul Mescal) destiny as he witnesses the death of his wife at the hands of the Roman army led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal). Enslaved and sold to Macrinus (Denzel Washington), Hanno is forced into the life of a gladiator. Rome, now led by two corrupt emperors, Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger), is fueled by war and violence. The Colosseum is a means of entertainment for Rome’s citizens, pitting gladiators against soldiers and celebrating Rome’s victories with bloodshed. Most interestingly, this sequel features battles so over-the-top that they must be seen to be believed. In many ways, the Colosseum now reflects the bubble bursting on that form of escapism, mirroring our reality while also sacrificing the grounded approach to storytelling that made the original film a landmark moment in Scott’s career.

The problem is that those scenes are vapid entertainment. The violence is more than the original film, but also heavily dependent on CG as animals are consistently thrown into the mix, and the whole movie feels like a mish-mash of tones that never quite mesh. The spectacle is remarkable, but the tactile presentation of the combat from the original is sorely missed as the fights become a blur of nobodies fighting rhinos, sharks, and baboons in increasingly insane setpieces. The issue is that throughout these fights, it becomes clear that Gladiator II has Scott and screenwriter David Scarpa (who also wrote Napoleon and All The Money in the World) looking at the original and amplifying the stand-out features without retaining the thoughtful character drama at its center.

Outside the delirious Colosseum battles, the twin emperors Geta and Caracalla are most noticeably heightened caricatures of what came before. Clearly intended to be substitutes for the bloodthirstiness and political aspirations of Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus from the original, Geta and Caracalla lack the motivation that allowed Phoenix to dig deeper into his character and come out with something memorable. Instead, it’s a sideshow inside Rome as the two emperors play different sides of the same coin, each one believing violence to be the only way to satiate Rome’s population. While Quinn seems to be trying to tap into something more profound with his character, Hechinger plays Caracalla as a child whose pet monkey is of more importance to him than the people he’s supposed to care for. This plays to big laughs but paints the villains as comical more than menacing. They are idiots who have found themselves in power but lack the nuance for the audience to believe for even a second they can hold the throne.

Mescal also falls into a similar camp as Quinn and Hechinger, except he’s not just any character: he’s the hero of the film who is very quickly revealed to be Lucius Varus, the heir to the throne and the grandson to Marcus Aurelius. Those are relatively big boots to fill, which ends up being the entire arc for Lucius as he sees Rome at its most starved for civility. There are many reasons Mescal doesn’t work in the role, though, and the film's positioning of him as a replacement for Russell Crowe is the greatest of the film’s problems. Quite simply, Mescal doesn’t have the gravitas that Crowe did coming into Gladiator. He’s much more suited to smaller-scale character dramas, so hearing him try to rouse an army to fight alongside him is unconvincing and distracting. It’s not all bad, as Lucius is a character plagued by his legacy and the responsibility thrust upon him, but it always feels like Mescal is forced to roll with the punches more than deliver them himself.

It’s in Macrinus and Washington’s charismatic performance that Gladiator II solidifies itself in the same universe as its predecessor. It demonstrates the importance of giving meaty roles to those capable of making a meal out of them. Washington might as well be in a different movie than everyone else, but he plays the character perfectly for the world he inhabits. Slippery and selfish, Macrinus’s political aspirations lurk in the shadows of every scene of the film as his hand starts moving chess pieces around the board in pursuit of power. Washington, already Shakespearean enough in The Tragedy of Macbeth, delights in every scene and shows why he is a movie star given the freedom to mold characters to his strengths. It’s an incredibly showy performance in a movie where the performances are rarely captivating enough for a film operating at this large of a scale. Perhaps that best exemplifies why the intimate character moments and subplots work better than the overarching plot that seems to be desperately searching for the same epic scale as its predecessor.

Gladiator II is a disappointing movie, but it’s also one that still hits the beats it needs to hit to be satisfying enough. That’s the common thread among Scott’s later-era films—The Last Duel being the exception as its screenplay matches the visual prowess of its director and is arguably one of Scott’s greatest films. There’s no stopping the man when it comes to creating sturdy epics that are captivating enough from the pure spectacle that they don’t necessarily need to be more than that. The problem resides more in the fact that Gladiator II’s framework already exists and was done exceptionally back in 2000. 24 years later, Scott finds himself more than capable of delivering what audiences want, but the satisfaction always comes in giving the audience what they don’t know they want. However, Gladiator II doesn’t ever seem aware of its potential to do that and feels stuck reliving the glory of its past victory.