Director: Ridley Scott Starring: Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger Running Time: 148 minutes
Maybe it is too much to expect a bit of dulce or decorum from a sequel to Gladiator. For all of the pomp and prestige the 2000s epic had at the time and has gained in the years since, the Oscars extraordinaire and dad movie darling was as much a cheesy blockbuster of its time as anything put out by Disney and the likes today, a pageant procession of corny dialogue and crass fights that nevertheless coalesced into a classic through the sheer force of will of its all-timer cast and crew.
With a stellar new cast and an engaged and enthusiastically returning Ridley Scott on board, it would be easy to envision Gladiator II as an earnest effort to invoke the legacy not only of the original film, but of the Golden Age of Hollywood epics that inspired it. An old-fashioned bit of razzle dazzle, using past movies as a jumping-off point, like the first film, as opposed to the trite, tiresome, tacky ‘legacy sequels’ that occupy so much space at the modern box-office, all shallow and desperate efforts to copy and paste the profits glories of old victories, like a mad Caesar forcing gladiators to play out famous battles of history. Alas. There once was a dream that was Rome, sure enough, and Gladiator II is its death rattle.
Given an inelegant familial tie to Russell Crowe’s Maximus by a plot that’s less Ulpian tome and more tabloid scandal, Paul Mescal’s Lucius has spent his life in exile in Africa, growing up into a capable warrior worthy of taking over a viable IP. As the exact same beats of the first Gladiator play out again, Lucius loses his wife, is sold into slavery, becomes a gladiator and wins the hearts of the people while monarchs and politicians make power plays from above.
Tyrannical twin emperors Geta and Caracalla (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger) are great Romans strictly in the Roy sense, scrappy and syphilitic perversions of Romulus and Remus sucking their city dry. Their bloodlust, with General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) as their overworked middle manager warmonger, indirectly pushes Lucius into the same Colosseum where his father once entertained, all part of a convoluted plan by Macrinus (Denzel Washington, peacocking with aplomb) to take control of the Empire. As he manipulates from the sidelines and taps into his ward’s rage, you could say Denzel is the film’s Phantom Menace.
Lucius is already filled with contempt for Rome, both from being cast out by his mother Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and from experiencing their colonial conquest firsthand. A roaring rampage of revenge as he embraces his heritage should be a straightforward story, but what plays out on screen is muddled and undercooked. Three quarters of the film is spent with him thirsting for vengeance against Pascal, whose character (also Lucilla’s husband for added melodrama) is too pared down to create any real drama in their conflict. The viewer gets to see that Pascal is actually a good guy, which Lucius does not, and yet this dramatic irony is under-leaned on because there are so many other elements to attend to.
Quinn and Hechinger are entertainingly awful as useless royals but are underwritten and disconnected from the hero. Denzel emerges as the true villain, but the film fails to underline the ways that his character compares and contrasts with Lucius. Their paths are parallel, their goals are simpatico, their approaches are irreconcilable. That should create conflict, but a script of Vesuvian dysentery is too interested in cheap callbacks to feed the narrative. When Denzel reveals his true motivations, its to a character from the last movie, and about a character from the last movie.
To whom Lucius’ lineage is meant to be a big secret – the audience? Denzel? Himself? – is inconsistent and unclear, and the film spends far too much of its runtime pretending “Hanno” isn’t who he is, only to have Mescal quote Crowe word for word, and wear his armour, and generally function as Maximus Reincarnate, just as Nick Cave prophesised. Lucius embracing his identity is less a grand Return of the King redemption arc and more like a superhero origin story. Maximus was an experienced general whose strength and honour served him on the battlefield and inspired those around him. Mescal’s Lucius wins fights, hearts and minds because he is the Main Character. As scenes rush through action and exposition, any effort into establishing him or any other character is lost, leaving archetypes and weak stand-ins.
What should be Mescal’s coming-out party as an A-lister instead leaves him listless, his confusion and disappointment palpable on screen as he gets to star in a huge sequel directed by a legend but gets served a nothing character. Lucius lacks personality and presence, and Mescal is not at a point in his career where he can fill in those blanks. To again invoke Episode I, his work here is very comparable to Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan; an uncertain imitation, and uncomfortable exercise in mumbling out dud dialogue. More delicate and measured, Mescal is miscast in the pomp and circumstance of this kind of role; the supposed rage of his character is less barbarian bloodlust and more like an annoyed GAA captain telling off his teammates at half time. He has done fantastic work in more cohesive stories but is not up to the task of being under-served.
As disconnected scenes cut off early, as actors stand awkwardly in front of green screen and wrestle with enlivening rushed special effects, only those given reign to descend into camp survive. While Denzel, Tim McInerny and the twins tragic cavort and cat through an episode of Up Pompeii, Mescal, Pascal and poor Connie Nielsen, all helpless weeping, are disserved by a script of Vesuvian dysentery. The editing is unfocused and uncertain, a story uncracked as it attempts to weave through basic questions of the production like ‘what is Lucius feeling in this moment’, ‘did Macrinus already know this revelation’ or ‘does Marcus Acacius have a functional place in this narrative anymore’. Basic action is weighed down between awkward cuts, aimless scenes and embarrassing ADR, Scott fiddling while Rome burns.
Indecisive and incohesive, Gladiator II can only rely on lame nostalgia, unable to find an actual, original story it is interested in or able to tell. The nostalgia-bait ultimately undermines every other aspect of the film, the divine right that comes from being the son of a movie main character utterly contradictory to every other point the film is trying to make about power, who should have it and how. The result is yet another unnecessary sequel, grotesquely and pathetically masquerading in the skin of its ancestor. The bread is stale, and they’ve made a circus of Maximus.
(1 / 5)