During its post-Oscar win hype there was a lot of pressure placed on Scott to make a sequel. Rock musician and filmmaker Nick Cave even wrote a screenplay which was heavily supernatural in its storyline but still Scott couldn’t be swayed – saying instead he would make a sequel if he ever found the right story.
Well, it seems now that Scott has finally been given a story that he likes – from the pen of David Scarpa (Napoleon) and we finally return to the Colosseum in cinemas right around the world.
This time around the plot centres around a young soldier named Lucius (Paul Mescal – All Of Us Strangers), who is living a happy life in Africa with his wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen – The Missing). Their happiness is shattered though when a Roman attack, led by General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal – The Mandalorian), hits their port. Arishat is killed in the subsequent battle while Lucius is taken as a slave to Rome.
There he catches the eye of the ambitious Macrinus (Denzel Washington – The Book of Eli), who trains him to be the next big money-earner in the Colosseum. At the same time Macrinus finds himself in the middle of a political power vacuum as Marcus Acacius and his wife, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen – Wonder Woman), plan to overthrow the dual-Caesars Emperor Geta (Joseph Quinn – A Quiet Place: Day One) and Emperor Caracalla (Fred Hechinger – Thelma), and return Rome to a place free of corruption.
That struggle becomes even more interesting as Lucius rises up the ranks of Gladiators, winning over the people of Rome. All are waiting for the one thing he has asked Macrinus for – the head of Marcus Acacius.
Like he did with the first film, Ridley Scott finds the right mix of action and politics to make this film work on several levels. At times, the more political scenes driven by dialogue are more exciting and suspenseful than the action in the arena.
To their credit Scott and Scarpa make Gladiator II more powerful by the fact that they have worked hard on characterisation while embracing key storylines from the first film, including Lucilla’s push to return Rome to what her father wanted it to be.
The links between this film and the original are clearly obvious for those who love the first film, but one of first criticisms of the film is that perhaps one of the links is way too obvious and perhaps a little disrespectful to the morals and values of Maximus – things that were key elements in the first film.
The other criticism of Gladiator II needs to be some of the weaker parts of the movie. The CGI baboons that Lucius fights at one point of the film look absolutely ridiculous. Seriously there are B and C Grade movies out there with better CGI. It seems strange, but some of the CGI in the first film looks better than what appears on the screen this time around.
In another laughable moment, when I found myself watching in disbelief at just how ridiculous the scene was, we see an image of Macrinus laughing on screen and I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not that was Denzel Washington’s reaction when he first read the scene in his script.
It is a shame these moments mar the film because this could have been a film that was held in the same regard as the original. The acting here is sensational – Mescal, Nielsen and Pascal are all brilliant while Denzel Washington plays Macrinus with strong Shakespearian flair that makes him a true standout and one of the most interesting characters in the film.
When you add those performances to an interesting plot that creates enough suspense to overcome its predictability, you realise that you are watching something that could have been pretty special.
Sadly that is the best way to describe Gladiator II – a ‘could have been’ film. All the ingredients were there to make this a decent film, but the outstanding acting and intriguing political plot will largely be forgotten while the terrible CGI baboons and a ridiculously stupid shark sequence will be forever etched on all of our minds.
Gladiator II is currently screening in Phuket and is rated ‘15’
3/5 Stars
David Griffiths has been working as a film journalist for over 25 years. That time has seen him work in radio, television and in print. He currently hosts a film podcast called The Popcorn Conspiracy. He is also a Rotten Tomatoes accredited reviewer and is an alternate judge for the Golden Globes Awards. You can follow him at Facebook: SubcultureEntertainmentAus