Well-acted and action-packed, 'Gladiator II' lacks spark of the original
Denzel Washington is a hoot, but David Scarpa's screenplay is a mess.
Some filmmakers like to lay tire tracks over the same terrain, because comfort exists in a particular aesthetic or the genre is too golden to pass up. Ridley Scott can’t get enough satisfaction from the medieval age, when Roman generals were treated like rock stars and the toughest men were treated like animals in an arena. It’s the repetitive nature of these endeavors that can doom a filmmaker.
24 years after Russell Crowe became a legit top-bill movie star and took an Oscar for playing a disgraced Roman general who guns for revenge through the fighter slave trade, Scott is back with Gladiator II, a very similar story with familiar surroundings. Paul Mescal’s Lucius, the little boy from the first film sent running after Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) was killed, replaces Crowe’s titular hero.
Mescal’s orphan, like Maximus, sees his wife die at the hands of the Roman army and becomes a mad-as-hell killing machine, hellbent on taking down the General (Pedro Pascal, doing his best Eric Bana from Troy). There’s the returning Connie Nielson, the daughter of the king who also found her footing in Rome unstable after the original’s ending. She looks terrified and stressed the entire movie, for reasons that David Scarpa’s screenplay will answer during the second and tiresome third act.
Don’t forget the new annoying heels in the sequel: the Emperor status split into two insufferably blood-drunk twins (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger), who only wish to see every innocent soldier in their city fall at the hands of war, something that Pascal’s Acacius can no longer stomach as their main muscle. Quinn and Hechinger borrow more than a few strokes from Game of Thrones’ Joffrey. They give petty a bad name, and the performances aren’t fun to watch even as deplorable people. It’s more like a retread fashion, something the rest of the film leans into as the running time stacks up.
Scott testing these waters decades after the first film should have been a red flag. So, after all these years of not going back in with something more cohesive, he wants to put a neat, little bow on the ambiguity that the first film gave viewers. The hero bested the villain but died, leaving the fate of Rome in the balance. Gladiator II attaches an unnecessary continuation that feels forced.
The acting elevates the operation. All in all, Mescal acquits himself well, even if he is a bit lost in Lucius’s skin at times. Washington works around the story and characters like he’s in another film, and it’s entertaining until becoming cartoonish near the climax. He will score a nomination for his over-the-top, scenery chewing performance as an arms dealer who acquires gladiators for financial gain and status. Mescal’s renegade offers him a chance to sit at the big table. It’s the path he takes there that lacks conviction or a shred of viability, riding into ridiculous waters of convenience.
I don’t mind CGI monkeys and rhinos, and shark-infested waters during battles at the Coliseum. That’s inflating an already outlandish time period that begs for some fruity upgrades. It’s the plot points and methods in Scarpa’s screenplay that provoke odd reactions to character deaths and eventualities. If Crowe thought the original script for the 2000 film was “utter shit,” he’d have a field day here. When asked this year, he found it odd that Ridley was going back there.
Count me in the same boat. While containing some good acting and riveting action, the sum of its parts don’t hold as much weight. Gladiator II isn’t a complete waste of time, but it falls short of expectations for needing to exist.
Next time, just give me a whole movie with Washington’s Macrinus. That would have made for a better film than endlessly shoving all the good things about the original back down our throats. He is the reason this film gets a fresh rating from me on Rotten Tomatoes, and the amount of stars below.
Film Buffa Rating: 3/5 stars (aka no need to rush, but see it in a theater.)