How often do you think about the Roman Empire? If you’re Ridley Scott, it’s seemingly about once every quarter century, as he returns to the Colosseum for Gladiator II, the sequel to his 2000 historical blockbuster Gladiator.
That’s not strictly accurate. There have been endless attempts to turn this blood-drenched epic into a franchise, efforts hamstrung by the fact – 24-year-old spoiler incoming – that Joaquin Phoenix’s Emperor Commodus and Russell Crowe’s titular pit fighter, Maximus, were very much dead by the end. So Scott has settled on a sequel that basically says that Roman idealist Maximus died for nothing. After the death of the real Commodus in AD 192, the empire fell into bloody chaos. When Gladiator II begins in AD 200, the chariot of Sol Invictus is sweeping across the sundial of time, and warrior-peasant Hanno (Mescal) is evading its rays by hiding in North Africa. Yet the bloody conquerors of the Pax Romana destroy his life and send him to the gladiator pits under the watchful and manipulative eye of ambitious fixer Macrinus (Washington).
Why center on Hanno? Because he’s actually Lucius, Maximus’ illegitimate son and a valid claimant to the throne of the Roman Empire. Well, as valid as anyone, as the imperial city is rotting under the flouncing, giggling reign of brothers and joint emperors Geta (Quinn) and Caracalla (Hechinger). Less Romulus and Remus, more cut-price Nero and Caligula, their unhinged reign is facing revolt, headed by General Acacius (Pascal) and Lucius’ mother, Lucilla (the returning Nielsen). In this convoluted mess, Scott has basically broken fallen warrior Maximus into two figures – vengeful Hanno and honorable Acacius – who, like him, are sickened by the corrupted empire. Then again, much of Gladiator II is just Gladiator with added complications and less charisma.
If Scott’s interest in historical accuracy was slight in the first film, it’s emptier than a broken amphora here. It makes Zack Snyder’s asinine 300 seem like Gibbon’s Decline and Fall by comparison, and at least that was visually creative. As with most of Scott’s historical epics post-Kingdom of Heaven, Gladiator II is astonishingly flat to look at, with even the absurd sequences of gladiatorial combat stricken by bad CG, ponderous edits, and a peculiar bloodlessness. There’s none of the visceral artfulness that Scott managed in the original. Quite simply, if you can’t make man-on-baboon hand-to-hand combat interesting, why do you think you can make a sword fight fun?
It’s also undeniable that this trip back to the Colosseum suffers from the absence of Crowe’s brawny poetry. Mescal has excelled in subtle character dramas like Aftersun and All of Us Strangers, but seems lost for much of Hanno’s tribulations, only finding a real direction when he casts off his peasant’s clothing and finally embraces his birthright as Lucius. Pascal at least has a firmer grasp on disillusioned warrior Acacius, even if he’s not given much to do. Yet both are overshadowed by an absurdly hammy Washington, who seems to be aiming for camp and misses by a Roman mile.
Arguably, the wellspring of Gladiator II’s problems is the script by David Scarpa. After his muddleheaded attempts to find the comedy of autocracy for Scott in Napoleon, here he tries and fails to create palace intrigue. Every twist and turn is signaled far ahead, so there’s no sense of mystery. That extends to Hanno/Lucius’ identity, which is revealed through an early, unnecessary flashback and stripped of weight or enigma. Scott’s increasingly leaden direction can’t add any nuance, and instead sloppily lumps together the po-faced grandeur of Quo Vadis and the unhinged debauchery of Caligula. Unsurprisingly, po-faced debauchery is less fun than a sharp pilum in the eye.
This article appears in November 22 • 2024.
