Main cast: Paul Mescal (Hanno), Pedro Pascal (General Acacius), Joseph Quinn (Emperor Geta), Fred Hechinger (Emperor Caracalla), Lior Raz (Viggo), Derek Jacobi (Senator Gracchus), Peter Mensah (Jugurtha), Matt Lucas (The Master of Ceremonies), Alexander Karim (Ravi), Connie Nielsen (Lucilla), and Denzel Washington (Macrinus)
Director: Ridley Scott
Gladiator II isn’t just an unnecessary sequel, it’s a stupid sequel that undermines the character of Maximus in the original film.
Firstly, and this is not a spoiler because it’s all over the marketing materials, the hero of this one is the son of Lucilla and Maximus. What? I don’t recall those two being lovers, much less shagged, in the movie, and one of Maximus’s defining characteristics is his unyielding devotion to his wife and kid. Having him and Lucilla shag just cheapens that character somehow.
The tragedy of this movie is that they don’t have to make the hero, Hanno, the son of those two characters. The story can work just fine with a few tweaks had Hanno been just some slave turned gladiator. Lucilla could have taken a shine to him because he reminded her of Maximus, for example, and convinces her husband that he could be a useful idiot in jumpstarting a revolution to topple the current regime.
Still, I’m jumping ahead of myself. Let’s talk about the story first.
So yes, Hanno is living with his wife in Numidia when General Acacius and his army invade the place. Hanno’s wife can fight because it’s the present day and the time of the girl boss… oh wait, never mind, she’s dead. Hanno is captured as a slave, soon becomes a gladiator hoping to avenge himself on Acacius, blah blah blah.
Yes, this movie mirrors the original movie quite a lot, just with all the bits and pieces that made Gladiator so good completely missing.
Also, the movie decides to add a few more twists this time around, so on top of Hanno’s mom now being married to Acacius, it turns out that Acacius isn’t a bad guy, just a general following the orders of the deranged and somewhat too touchy-feely twin brothers Geta and Caracalla that are now the Emperors of Rome. He and Lucilla are actually plotting to overthrow those two Commodus knockoffs and establish a better Rome. The real bad guy is, ooh, Hanno’s trainer Macrinus that just wants to be everyone’s boss.
Oh boy, where do I start? I really want to give this movie a chance, but Paul Mescal has none of Russell Crowe’s testosterone level, presence, and gravitas in the original film. He’s cute in a fairly generic safe sexy way, but he is more of a sidekick material than the lead man boss of a movie. The actor is lightweight as far as making an impact goes, and his attempt at making a grand speech at the end is part cringe and part awkward. He’s no “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?”, that’s for sure.
Even his rise of fame is unearned. Initially, the crowd cheers him on because… he flings some dirt at some rhino. Most of his victories are either handed to him or he stumbles into one by chance. By the end of the movie, everyone wants to rally around this charisma-free character because… why? He barely interacts in any meaningful way with his mother or her husband to make him noteworthy to these people!
In fact, while Maximus drives the plot, here Hanno is just drifting through events that are beyond his control. As a result, he doesn’t have any memorable character establishment moment to engage my attention, whereas by the mid-point of the original movie, Maximus is already a rock star gladiator and sex god all in one. Hanno is elevated to greatness because the plot shoves its finger up his arse and hoists him up, not because he’s a capable hero that fights hard to earn all his victories.
Meanwhile, Pedro Pascal is Pedro Pascal. Look, I like the guy, and my kudos to his agent, but I’m actually bored of seeing him play himself in so many movies in a short time frame. He should take a break and spend more time screaming at people on social media, because I could use a break myself from seeing him in everything. Also, he looks quite dumb in the outfits they put him in.
Denzel Washington glowers and looks like a meanie, but the movie tries too hard to include twists and turns that his villain arc feels underdeveloped and rushed toward the end of the film. The film has to split its runtime among him, the creepy twins, and Acacius and wife in its two hours plus runtime, and all of them are shortchanged as a result.
Sure, the movie has fight scenes and grand sceneries — although some of the CGIs, especially the monkeys Hanno and the other gladiators have to fight early in the movie, are pretty bad — but the whole thing is just flash and style, like a video game cutscene that is nice to look at but not much else because all the main characters, including Hanno, are nondescript one-note types.
So yes, this movie is a spectacularly hollow and nonsensical sequel that only shows how creatively bankrupt Ridley Scott and friends have to be to put this turd out 24 years after the first film. Are they really that desperate to pay the rent?
Anyway, Gladiator II exists, and that’s basically as good as it gets when it comes to the virtues of this unwanted bastard child of the first movie.
