Gladiator 2 Movie Review: Small premise. It is quite easy to understand why Hollywood, especially for very high-budget productions, endlessly reiterates the solution of sequel/prequel/reboot, a practice that has always existed in cinema since its dawn and today mainly harnessed by the canons of seriality: fear of risk and the consequent need to exploit (sometimes to the bone) formulas, names, and contexts that guarantee an economic return.
What Americans seem to miss, however, is the fact that this game has started to no longer work. Just think of Tom Cruise: in 2022 he managed, with the sequel/clone of Top Gun, to generate 1.5 billion dollars in box office receipts (cost of the film: 170 million), only to run into, just one year later, a colossal flop: his Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning grossed 570 million against a budget of 290 million, producing around 100 million in losses.
Now: that Paramount and Ridley Scott want to resurrect a 2000 film that won 5 Oscars is legitimate and sacrosanct. But how many concrete chances are there that Gladiator II will break through the 600 million dollar barrier, or double what it is rumored to have cost (the estimated budget ranges from 250 to 300 million due to numerous additional shots)? And, above all, how many chances are there that this film will be as enjoyable to the public as its predecessor?
Let's hazard an answer: few. How many that the title will follow the unfortunate fate of Ridley Scott's latest flop (who mysteriously continues to be praised in the collective imagination, despite now getting very few films right), Napoleon (200 million budget and 220 million in the box office)? Many.
Gladiator 2: A film devoid of pathos
The reason for this prediction - which we somehow hope will be disappointing - lies first and foremost in the content of Gladiator II. Taking Top Gun: Maverick as an example, Joseph Kosinski's film was a box office hit because it not only literally copied the model it was inspired by (a similar technique was used in Star Wars: The Force Awakens), but it intelligently updated it, generating unprecedented word of mouth.
The film gave those nostalgic for the 80s what they wanted and managed to bring a second generation of viewers to the theater. Exactly what Ridley Scott fails to do in this sequel. Not because the previous one is an untouchable masterpiece but because it is linked to peculiarities that are perhaps impossible to replicate in a sequel. Without going into a comparison between the original and the sequel, suffice it to say that Gladiator II is a film devoid of pathos, an essential characteristic of the 2000 film.
From the first minutes, introduced by beautifully animated opening credits that act as a prologue, Scott literally bombards the audience with unbridled action underlined by an empathetic soundtrack that is at times annoying, almost an admission of guilt: "I know I won't be able to thrill you, but at least enjoy the show". With the help of a GCI that incomprehensibly is at times less incisive and more fake than the visual effects of Game of Thrones, the director in the first half hour places a colossal battle with ships and a clash in the arena between gladiators and xenomorphic monkeys. After that, the film begins.
Screenwriter David Scarpa does his best to craft a story that has connections with the previous film and at the same time sounds new, the commitment is there and it shows: new characters and references to the past here and there, mad emperors but also a bit of intrigue in the palace, some predictable expedients compensated by a couple of enjoyable twists. What is missing, however, is the pathos.
Thank goodness Denzel Washington is there
An absence due in the first instance to the (non) motivation that moves the protagonist, Lucio Vero (a Paul Mescal who is not at ease in the role of a gladiator): revenge, obviously, but also a naïve and confused idea of justice that culminates in a finale one step away from the cringe. The viewer follows him with pleasure but does not love him. The infatuation, if anything, is for Marco Acacio (Pedro Pascal), general of the unstoppable army but tired of death, with honor and principles as solid as those of Massimo Decimo Meridio. The cheering is all for him, who openly challenges - despite having a lot to lose - his emperors, in an attempt to overthrow, together with Augusta Lucilla (also played by Connie Nielsen), a dictatorship of blood and destruction.
Alongside him, other supporting characters are better written/performed than the main one: Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger (Geta and Caracalla), very good at giving body to an idea of boundless madness and debauchery, and Alexander Karim (Ravi), whose character adds a touch of depth to the context in which Lucio Vero moves. While the film continues between ups and downs, right choices and others totally out of place (the beautiful scene of naumachia in the Colosseum, for example, is ruined by the presence of enormous voracious sharks), a comfortable direction with few flashes and imagination, something happens.
The story grows and the audience begins to get passionate until they realize what the main attraction of this sequel is: Denzel Washington. His character, Macrino, a slave trader with boundless ambition, is the best written of the entire film, the trigger for most of the events narrated that little by little takes over everything else, also thanks to the excellent performance of Washington. In the partial void of ideas, credibility, and meaning that characterizes both Gladiator II and the Rome described in it, Macrino/Washington rises above everything and devours the scene, even becoming the final villain.
How an apparently secondary element of a production worth almost three hundred million dollars may become the absolute protagonist, is a question that should be asked to Paramount, Ridley Scott, and David Scarpa. One thing, however, is certain: this sequel suddenly becomes very enjoyable when compared to the one written by Nick Cave in 2006 (and never made), in which the reincarnated spirit of Maximus returns to Rome to defend Christians from persecution, and then is transported to other periods of history, from the Second World War to the conflict in Vietnam, up to the present…
OVERALL REVIEW
Gladiator II is a film spectacular enough and with a well-matched cast to guarantee entertainment in the theater, also thanks to a plot and connections with the past that are not completely inconclusive, as often happens in blockbusters of the genre. Denzel Washington's performance is amazing, having had the fortune of playing the best-written character. If you are nostalgic for the 2000 film, however, this sequel will sharpen it and will continue to echo in your head, from beginning to end, only the iconic line by Russel Crowe: "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Northern Army, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant of the one true Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Father of a murdered son, husband of a murdered wife... and I will have my vengeance... in this life or the next!".
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