‘Gladiator II’ Review: Paul Mescal Enters the Colosseum in a Dull Retread of the Original

Released in the last year of the 20^th century, Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” paid tribute to Hollywood’s past by embracing the tools of its future. The film’s sheer grandeur could only be accomplished by combining modern digital effects with practical methods followed by filmmakers of yore, but spectacle isn’t the sole reason for its commercial success or cultural dominance. Its script embraced the unaffected charms of old-school melodrama and broad-strokes epic storytelling, both of which are grounded in Russell Crowe’s genuine movie star turn as the brawny, soulful warrior Maximus. (Rest assured, “Gladiator” doesn’t remotely work without him.) Whatever its deficiencies in terms of political depth, historical accuracy, or even visual panache, “Gladiator” endures because it innately understands that crowd-pleasing entertainment can’t be phoned in; it requires a sincere investment in traditional dramatic tenets that too many either take for granted or dismiss as antiquated.

Almost 25 years later, Scott returns to ancient Rome with a sequel that’s bigger in almost every way — production budget, cast and crew, the use of CGI, the scale of the action sequences — yet drained of any of the old-fashioned magic that elevated the original. “Gladiator II,” like many contemporary Hollywood productions, doesn’t disappoint in any kind of novel or interesting way. If anything, it’s a testament to the tedium of basic competence, and an all-too-familiar story of a celebrated director returning to a big success and failing to recapture what made it a sensation in the first place.

The film takes place a couple of decades after Maximus’ death. Lucius (Paul Mescal, ripped as hell), son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and former heir to the Roman Empire, has been living in exile with his wife in the province of Numidia. Alongside their comrades, they struggle to protect their home from being colonized by the Romans, who have been aggressively expanding their dominion around the world. When the army led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) ultimately invades and captures the land, Lucius is taken prisoner as a slave and brought back to Rome against his will. He’s soon forced to become a gladiator to fight for his freedom and avenge the murder of his wife against the backdrop of a politically unstable empire.

Mescal’s Lucius, originally played as a guileless young boy by Spencer Treat Clark in the original, might be a “barbarian” while Crowe’s Maximus was a Roman general, but their arcs from soldier to slave to gladiator are otherwise the same. They’re both motivated by vengeance, which in turn becomes the dream of an empire in service to citizens instead of the whims of power-hungry despots. In “Gladiator,” Joaquin Phoenix’s sniveling, paranoid Commodus served as the film’s primary villain; in the sequel, it’s spread amongst three principals: co-emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger), who are campy in aesthetic and manner, and Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a former slave-turned-businessman who eyes the throne with patience and envy.

Macrinus takes a liking to Lucius after seeing him single-handedly obliterate a baboon in the Colosseum. He admires the warrior’s incandescent rage, but Lucius slowly learns to abandon his anger towards Rome and embrace his destiny after Lucilla informs him about the truth of his lineage. Following in the footsteps of his father Maximus, Lucius becomes determined to restore Rome to its ostensibly benevolent former glory by ridding it of the megalomaniacs in his midst.

“Gladiator II” venerates Maximus as if he was a God that walked among mere mortals, but that reverence functions as a stand-in for the film’s slavish admiration of the original film. Screenwriter David Scarpa — who also penned “All the Money in the World” and “Napoleon” — constantly invites comparisons to the original by making explicit references to key lines of dialogue and remixing iconic scenes. Character analogues abound between the two films, e.g., Ravi (Alexander Karim), a former gladiator-turned-doctor who becomes Lucius’ closest friend feels like a combination of Djimon Hounsou’s Juba and Oliver Reed’s Proximo from “Gladiator.” “Gladiator II” even begins with a painterly recap of the first film over the opening credits that serves as summary and a prefiguration of the inevitable contrasts audiences will inevitably make between the original and its subpar follow-up.

“Gladiator II” wouldn’t be the first sequel to become bogged down in its resemblance to its forebear, but the various superficial modifications made to characterizations and action sequences operate under faulty bigger-is-better sequel logic. The first film had a crazy emperor; the sequel has two crazy emperors — and another crazy opportunist for good measure! “Gladiator” had CGI tigers fighting against warriors in the arena. Well, “Gladiator II” has CGI rhinos and sharks! While “Gladiator” was sorely lacking in aquatic battles featuring hyper-digital-looking water, rest assured that “Gladiator II” makes up for it in spades. 

‘Gladiator II’Aidan Monaghan

Granted, these choices aren’t inherent millstones around a sequel’s neck, but they live and die depending on the depth of character and performance, neither of which are really present in “Gladiator II.” Mescal acquits himself fine as Lucius, mostly by channeling Crowe in key intimate moments, but he struggles to express the character’s interiority on a scale that the film demands. Washington’s performance will likely garner some recognition, especially in the moments when he leans into physical and rhetorical flamboyance, but the actor’s patented bag of tricks doesn’t help transcend Macrinus’ stodgy archetypal nature. Out of the main cast, Pascal stands out largely because his character — a Roman general disgusted by the mass death he’s ordered to administer — is the most conflicted and dynamic. Naturally, he’s barely in the film.

Still, performances inevitably struggle to make much of an impact when they’re maneuvering within an overly busy plot. While “Gladiator” had plenty of political intrigue that informed and supported Maximus’ journey, the film’s relative narrative simplicity was a feature rather than a bug. In the sequel, Lucius and his struggles in the arena feels largely outside Macrinus’ various schemes and the machinations of Acacius and Lucilla, who quietly plot a coup against the emperors for much of the film. These storylines all vary in interest, and though they eventually dovetail, they never feel part of a coherent whole, rendering “Gladiator II” frequently disjointed.

Unfortunately, the film’s action sequences, arguably the biggest audience draw, do little to distract from the lackluster narrative. “Gladiator II” follows the original’s lead by opening with a large-scale war battle before moving into more intimate skirmishes, but none of them project much visceral intensity. It would be easy to lay blame on the obvious unreality of the digital effects on display, whether that’s the animals or the water or the environment, but “Gladiator” heavily relied on similar, albeit less developed technology almost a quarter century ago. Here, however, a bland sense of visual chaos dominates the proceedings, ill-suited by a repetitive editing rhythm, which makes every bloody blow feel mechanical and emotionless. Only when Lucius and Acacius inevitably face off in the arena does “Gladiator II” seem to comprehend the benefits of a “less is more” philosophy, not to the mention the underrated potency of clear emotional stakes. It’s still a far cry from the most impactful moments in “Gladiator,” like the failed prison break sequence or Commodus delivering a fatal stab wound to Maximus right before the climactic battle.

The brightest spots in “Gladiator II” lie in the film’s comedic moments, most of them generated by Quinn and Hechinger, who play a demented and easily influenced versions of Romulus and Remus. (At one point, the Roman senate hails Caracalla’s pet monkey Dundas. The monkey receives some funny reaction shots.) Apart from that, though, there’s so little to hold onto in the film other than the crushing awareness that everyone is retreading old territory, but without a company of accomplished English actors to liven up the proceedings (save for Derek Jacobi). In many ways, “Gladiator” prophesied the future of Hollywood filmmaking, but it could never predict how dull things would become, mostly because it was staunchly committed to the pursuit of entertainment. “Are you not entertained?” was always meant as a rhetorical question. If it isn’t asked again in “Gladiator II,” perhaps that’s only because it seems to answer itself this time.

Grade: C

Paramount Pictures will release “Gladiator II” in theaters on Friday, November 22.

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