Gladiator II | Review

Eternity and a Day: Scott Rehashes the Dying Embers of an Empire

“The movie doesn’t have to be great; it can be stupid and empty and you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line,” wrote Pauline Kale in her 1969 essay “Trash, Art, and the Movies.” The endlessly quotable, controversial prose of Kael might as well be an underwhelming way to describe Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, the long-awaited sequel to his celebrated Best Picture winner Gladiator (2000), a film which resuscitated the auteur’s lengthy slump through the 1990s and set him on a perennial course of (mostly) highly anticipated projects for the past twenty-four years. Early critical applause for Scott’s return to ancient Rome has felt curiously hollow, as if its vibrant champions have suddenly arrived from a parallel universe where this subject matter or presentation seems somehow innovative or refreshing. Re-teaming with scribe David Scarpa (who penned Scott’s 2017 All the Money in the World and the equally historically questionable Napoleon, 2023), who has co-written with Peter Craig (son of Sally Field, who’s churned out a number of glossy credits on high profile reboots like The Batman and the celebrated Top Gun: Maverick, both 2022), this unnecessary continuation of Rome’s political turmoil and barbaric practices fails to impress, watered down as it is with tepid approximations of the larger-than-life figures it attempts to resurrect.

Sixteen years after the death of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Empire has fallen into corruption, a death rattle too loud to avoid during the rule of dysfunctional brothers Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). After his lover is fallen by an arrow and he’s enslaved by the hordes of celebrated general Marcus Acacia (Pedro Pascal) when his home in Numidia is attacked by Rome, Lucius Venus (Paul Mescal) is sold into slavery, his penchant for brutality and savagery landing him in the stable of slave trader and arms dealer Macrinus (Denzel Washington). Lucius accepts his fate as a gladiator under Macrinus, but requests his new master arrange for a future face-off with Acacia, who he blames personally for the death of his lady love. But Acacia is married to Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), Lucius’ estranged mother, who sent him away from Rome as a youth for his own safety. Macrinus, a power-hungry ex-slave, believes he’s found a way to satisfy his deep-seated desire to rule Rome himself.

It’s a pity Scarpa and Craig either neglected to or were not allowed to channel the refreshing mixture of exhaustively researched but maliciously depicted energies penned by Robert Graves in his iconic novel I, Claudius and its sequel Claudius the God (both published in 1934). However, it would seem these were at least aspirational high points considering the casting of Derek Jacobi, who starred as the titular emperor in the iconic 1976 miniseries, here reduced to a walk-on status as a senator doomed to incur a sword’s deadly smiley face.

Scott seems contented to repeat what feels to be the exact same beats in this milieu, mounting a toxic mentor/slave relationship between Mescal and Washington, which plays similar to the Russell Crowe/Oliver Reed dynamic of the first film, and doubling up on nasty, sniveling emperors Geta and Caracalla, who are portrayed as spineless, mildly incestuous madmen by Joseph Quinn (resembling Robert Downey Jr. in his Less Than Zero era) and Fred Hechinger (who gets to anoint a primate the same way Caligula memorialized his beloved horse). Thrown into the mix is an ersatz riff on Hamlet with returning cast member Connie Nielsen as Lucille, daughter of Marcus Aurelius and mother of the prodigal Lucius. She’s married to a cohort of her dead lover Maximus, played with unerring solemnity by Pedro Pascal, a stepfather who has become the target of Lucius’ misguided bid for revenge.

Sprinkled over this ensemble is what feels like the vaguest attempt ever at reconstructing Rome’s royal political exploits and endless scandals amongst the court’s main players, where those in control always seem to hold a tenuous grip on the throne. Machinations are veritably rubbed out between the peaks of Scott’s Colosseum spectacles, which begin on a ridiculously ribald note with Lucius violently facing off with a bald, CGI baboon before moving onto more lavish gladiatorial sport involving boats and sharks. Rising slightly above all these superficial flourishes is Denzel Washington as Macrinus, the only characterization which maintains an intact, logical agenda. An ex-slave who sees a way to forge a bloody path to the throne, Macrinus manages to be the most intriguing presence, with Washington supplying a high level of flamboyance to distract from the lack of character development he deserves.

Returning DP John Mathieson has more green screen to navigate around than in the preceding film, by the end revealing this to be merely a minimized narrative which absurdly believes itself to be an epic. A cloying, romanticized score from Harry Greyson-Williams only furthers this sentiment, making Gladiator II feel equivalent to the imbalance of unleashing Cereberus on a loquacious Chihuahua. Wan attempts to romanticize Lucius’ fallen lover, the impetus for his blind hatred for his stepfather, are laughably characterized in scattered fantasies of her passage through the underworld while Lucius screams in dismay from a distance, all of which feel as perilously adolescent as Rupert Sanders’ braindead reboot of The Crow earlier this year.

For a sequel which had over two decades to gestate, what’s most shocking about Gladiator II is how damnably elementary and dreadfully dull it ends up being. But as stupid and empty as it seems, there is the life raft of an entertaining performance from Denzel Washington to keep it floating along.

★★½/☆☆☆☆☆