When Ridley Scott makes a movie, the gods flip a coin. Will it land on Napoleon’s side, or favour the superior The Martian face? It’s almost always a toss-up. In recent years, the eighty-six year old director has given us a steady stream of both – Gladiator II lands somewhere in the middle.
It’s been twenty years since General Maximus (Russell Crow) heroically sacrificed himself for the prosperity of Rome, and the Eternal City hasn’t changed much in the interim. Politicians are still corrupt, the tyrannical leaders – now a duo of perpetually pasty-faced man-children in Emperors Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) and Geta (Joseph Quinn) – are pillaging and conquering every nation they have a name for; and kicking around North Africa is a grown-up, from the original movie, Prince Lucius of Rome.
He’s been sent away by his mother, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), for his own protection. But the Roman Army, led by the battle-weary General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) – who is more of a Maximus 2.0 than Mescal ever gets to be – are never far away, laying waste to Lucius’ home and murdering his wife in the process.
After a monochrome dream sequence in the afterlife, Lucius is captured and forced to become a Gladiator for the maniacal warlord Macrinus (brilliantly played by a scene-stealing Denzel Washington).
Gladiator II is not here to reinvent the wheel, nor can it equal Scott’s original epic. With Lucius vowing to avenge his wife by killing Acacius (exactly like Maximus in the first film), Scott weaves in a multi-thread corruption arc with the Emperors, a machiavellian side plot starring Macrinus and a will-they-won’t-they scenario with Lucilla and Acacius who want to overthrow the Empire.
That’s a lot of plot, and repacking the original comes with a set of tradeoffs. Nothing here seems as immediate, or moving, as Maximus’ quest for freedom. All the same, what shines most are the Colosseum battles. No filmmaker does this type of spectacle quite like Ridley Scott. He’s in his element with twelve cameras, legions of blood thirsty Romans tearing into each other, and a lead actor so physically capable it’s a wonder he wasn’t born swinging a sword.
And with the full power of modern CGI at his fingertips, Scott gives us a truly breathtaking Rome. It’s a thrill to witness his imagination run wild here, packing arenas full of rabid monkeys foaming at the mouth and a lumbering rhino that’s more like a war tank than anything natural.
Still, this is small potatoes when compared to the naval battle. At around the halfway mark, reality takes a pitstop in fantasy land, as Mescal and co must battle for their lives in a flooded Colosseum (like a giant, sandy swimming pool), complete with ferocious sharks ready to devour anything that as much as looks at them.
It’s a seriously impressive show, if a touch empty. On its own merits, this romp through Rome is a wonderfully entertaining spectacle. It was never going to hit the heights of the original. It’s a different beast that thankfully innovates enough on the formula to be a genuine thrill, making Gladiator II the best thing in cinemas right now.
Gladiator II is in cinemas now
