Gladiator II

 

Years after the death of emperor Marcus Aurelius, his chosen successor Maximus, and his usurping son Commodus, Rome has slid further into tyranny under the misrule of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). Popular but war-weary general Acacius (Pedro Pasqual) conquers Numidia in North Africa in their name. In the process, Hanno (Paul Mescal) is captured and enslaved and his wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen) killed, leaving him to swear vengeance. His opportunity may come thanks to Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a gladiatorial gamesmaster who buys him. However, things are not what they seem: Hanno is really the former emperor’s grandson Lucious, his mother Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) plots with her husband Acacius to depose the emperors, and the ambitious Macrinus has an agenda all his own.

 

Given Gladiator’s critical and box office success, a follow-up seemed inevitable. One was in the works for decades (including, at one point, a crazy Nick Cave script that featured a resurrected, immortal Maximus) before it finally came together. The finished product (with a much more sedate script courtesy of David Scarpa) attempts to pull off playing on nostalgia for the first film without diminishing itself in the process, an endeavor at which it sometimes succeeds.

 

Narratively, Gladiator II is lackluster. Its story beats are often familiar to the point of predictable, and characters extoll the late Maximus’s virtues to an awkwardly repetitive extent. Only when Marcinus’s motives are revealed do we get what feels like an attempt to say something new.

 

Despite these shortcomings, the action, visuals, and even some of the acting is praiseworthy. Rumors of the 87-year-old Ridley Scott losing his touch with age are premature. His direction is as surefooted as ever, and he has a two-and-a-half movie feeling like one that runs a half-hour shorter. He managed to introduce even more spectacle to the coliseum combat scenes this time around without tilting too far into cartoonish absurdity.

 

No one expected Mescal to match Russell Crowe’s Oscar-winning performance, but he holds his own here. Whereas Maximus’s was a cold fury informed by martial discipline, Hanno’s burns hot. Mescal also gives the character a cynical edge. The more principled and dutiful aspects of Maximus’s character are passed off to Acacius, a role that Pascal handles capably but one that does little to challenge him. The returning Nielsen is likewise more a steady presence than a transcendent one. Washington is great as he often his, and he deploys his capacity for intensity amid calm to give Macrinus terrifying layers. That said, Quinn and Hechinger are wasted talents as largely one-dimensional Caligula wannabes.

 

Gladiator II does not quite measure up to let alone surpass the first film, but it offers enough craftsmanship and rousing entertainment to make it a worthy successor.