‘Gladiator II’: Unwanted, Unneeded, Underwhelming Sword-and-Sandals Sequel
A review of ‘Gladiator II’; Paramount Pictures, 2024.
No one was asking for another Gladiator (just as no one was or is asking for another American Psycho). But it seems that in America, money talks; consequently certain people decided to risk the purity of the Gladiator and make a second instalment. Predictably it has cast an unflattering light on its predecessor and made Paul Mescal look like a sellout. But there we are. This is what happens when money is raised above class.
The story is this: Hanno (Paul Mescal) is a well-liked Numidian soldier who is quite clearly Lucius, the precocious 12-year-old from the original. He and his wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen) must gear up and get ready to fight because the blasted Romans, led by General Acasius (Pedro Pascal) are en route from the sea. These Romans besiege the city and kill most of its inhabitants because they are organised and technologically superior and their enemies are a likeable rabble. During the fight, Arishat is shot. Hanno, now distraught, is knocked out, captured and taken to Rome as a slave, where he is bought by the gladiator-owner and shrewd politician Macrinus (Denzel Washington). Needless to say, Hanno/Lucius does well in the arena, in part thanks to his ‘rage’, which is brought up several times.
Hanno is a well-liked Numidian soldier who is quite clearly Lucius, the precocious 12-year-old from the original.
The really tedious thing is the way this film clumsily evokes its prequel. It is not just that it centres on a bearded soldier who becomes a slave and then a gladiator, driven to avenge the death of his wife. There are constant explicit mentions of Maximus, including in an opening montage that summarises the events of the prequel. The shout-outs are intolerable. Hanno/Lucius gives a stoical speech about death to his men before the big fight at the start. He is slashed sideways on the opposite shoulder to Maximus. Arcwords, or at any rate arcphrases, crop up: ‘strength and honour’, ‘I will have my vengeance’, ‘in this life or the next’, etc. I could go on. I do not really understand the thinking here. If we know the (infinitely better) prequel, we are bound to find these references irksome and toe-curling, for they make this film seem like a bad tribute act. If we do not know Gladiator, they will mean nothing to us.
But for the shots of Rome in all its classicist grandeur and an adorable scene-stealing monkey called Dondus, Washington is the best thing, as well as the best-dressed thing, about this film. He hauls all of its two and a half hours on his big broad shoulders and does his best to carry it. We bore quickly of Mescal and his attempts at an English accent. His talents are wasted. Connie Nielsen does her job. Pascal’s all-conquering General Acasius seems mainly to fret. The two emperors (Geta and Caracalla, played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger) are no match for Joaquin Phoenix’s intensely insecure and incestuous Commodus. And where, in Gladiator, the silliness (Tigris of Gaul, etc.) was somehow rendered believable, the rabid CGI monkeys and rhino-riders of the sequel just make us want to laugh. (I did laugh.)
Washington is the best thing, as well as the best-dressed thing, about this film.
Has Ridley Scott lost it? I thought Napoleon was an unmitigated disaster, and I badly wanted to like that one: I was keen to see a decent Napoleon biopic. In fact when I floated the idea of seeing Gladiator II to my brother, he said: ‘I worry it’ll just be another Napoleon.’ In some ways he was right. In other ways, Gladiator II is quite a bit worse than Napoleon. It is so silly at times that is practically a comedy. Let us not forget that the first Gladiator won five Oscars despite its main star’s tendency to storm off set and the death of Oliver Reed (who, along with Richard Harris, was one of the two great wasters acting in that film; God rest their souls).
One of the film’s redeeming features is that, much of the time, it is nice to look at. Not all of the time, mind you: there are few of those lovely reds and golds that marked the first film’s palette. But Rome proper looks suitably awe-inspiring, with its gleaming statues and pine trees, imperial regalia and Colosseum rising behind (per Juba in the first Gladiator: ‘I did not know men could build such things.’) And there are some beautiful outfits: I have mentioned Macrinus’s colourful ensemble, but Lucilla’s simple Grecian garb (and Dondas the monkey’s little dress) look fantastic, too. And to the extent that it is desirable, all of that helps us to lose ourselves in this rather disappointing film.
