Well, it finally happened—after years of rumors, we’re finally getting a return to Ridley Scott’s own peak with swords-and-sandals. There was talk of a weird setup involving Russel Crowe sent through time by Roman gods, but obviously that’s not happening here. And with Scott becoming increasingly hit and miss with his recent career, matching his previous classic wasn’t a sure thing either—so, returning once again to the splendrous of Colosseums and CG columns, how does the much belated Gladiator 2 turn out?
A bit of a mixed bag, to be honest. A lot of it follows similar beats to the original—starting off with a grandiose battle, gladiators being weeded out via fighting animals, struggles in the ring and machinations against evil emperors, and so on. Much like the first film, this one is pretty much gibberish historically—well, even more now, as we start with an invasion of the ‘city’ of Numidia in 200AD. And in it’s that battle that we meet our protagonist Lucius, played by Paul Mescal—soon to be captured, and with a vendetta against conflicted Roman general Acacius, played by, er, Pedro Pescal.
The main thing here is that Mescal is no Russel Crowe—which you can say is something of a plot point, but he’s immediately overshadowed by Pascal, and before long, Denzel Washington as Macrinus, a gladiator holder with greater ambitions. Denzel’s charisma pretty much makes any scene he’s in entertaining to watch—and that’s before he really starts to ham it up as his character amasses more political power, amid our twin evil emperors played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger. Neither is really as memorable as Joaquin Phoenix again, and both are essentially Caligula and Nero split between them—with rather stereotypical foppish performances that do feel a little behind the times now. Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi return from the first one, and do a fine enough job when they're on at least.
All that being side, for the most part, the visuals are fun—and we definitely see more leaning into classic Roman decadence, with togas and grapes galore. The action is also fine—muscles, swords, armor, all clashing on arena sands, those aspects of a film like this are definitely accounted for. We have now the effects to do things that were perhaps beyond the reach of the first film 25 years ago—like replicating the actual aquatic battles that did in fact happen in the colosseum (though I think even a general audience will wonder how they would get bona fide sharks in there).
But once again we have the problem that while he’s certainly trying and certainly has the physicality, Mescal just falls a notch short of the charisma here to really have you buy him as a gladiator revolutionary or whatever—in fact, he kinda spends a lot of the story bouncing around while Denzel takes command. And indeed, though Macrinus is set up as a somewhat ambiguous and interesting figure, his story just kinda stops near the end when the film decides that things have to be about Lucius again. Which then also lurches to a finale rather abruptly.
So that leaves this one as entertaining but flawed—it doesn’t match the first, even if as far as Scott’s recent cinematography goes, it’s definitely a step up over the pile of mediocrity that was Napoleon. It comes, it has plenty to see, but it certainly doesn’t conquer.
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