Late to the party, but I saw Gladiator 2 the other day. It’s not good. In fact, it’s terrible.
As we know Gladiator is one of those perfect movies. You have a perfect protagonist and a great antagonist and you are very invested in the entire thing.
Gladiator 2 is the same thing if you stripped away the characters, the music, the story, the direction. In fact, if you took away everything that made the original one of the best movies ever, you have Gladiator 2.
The movie stars Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nelson, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, Derek Jacobi, Peter Mensah and Matt Lucas. Ridley Scott directs and David Scarpa and Peter Craig serve as writers.
The Story
Sigh, let’s get this over with. The official story is:
After his home is conquered by the tyrannical emperors who now lead Rome, Lucius is forced to enter the Colosseum and must look to his past to find strength to return the glory of Rome to its people.
Lucius (Mescal) is Maximus’ son who’s now living in North Africa (I think). He’s got a wife, the city is attacked and she dies. Lucius thinks that General Acacius (Pascal) was responsible and will fight through the ranks of the gladiator school to get his revenge. That’s it, that’s the story.
At gladiator school, Lucius is taken under the wing of Macrinus (Washington), who plays Oliver Reed’s role from the first one. The first two acts are about Lucius getting to the general, then the third act takes a dump in the bed.
*Spoilers*
It turns out, that there are political manoeuvrings to overthrow the two emperors. Emperor Geta (Quinn) and Emperor Caracalla (Hechinger) are two utter morons that seem to be in charge of the Roman Empire. How? Don’t know, nepotism I guess, but I missed it when they said that.
Lucilla (Nelson) and Gracchus (Jacobi) are the ones trying to bring down the emperors and bring Rome back to its glory days, just like in the first movie.
There was such a weird moment when Lucilla recognised Lucius, how? He does the sand pick up thing and rubs his hands. It’s odd, because he never does this before, but only when she is watching. Also, I’m pretty sure that other people would do it, dry your hands for a better grip of your weapon, but whatever.
In the third act, Lucius ends up in the arena with Acacius and you can guess who wins.
However, it turns out that Macrinus is doing more of the political manoeuvrings and he wants to take over. Lucius fights him in the most stupid fight of the movie, wins and gives a speech about nice it would be if everyone was nice to each other.
The fight was stupid, but at no point did they show that Macrinus could fight. He was a desk man, but when he’s up again a seasoned gladiator he holds his own? The last 30 minutes were laughable.
Photocopy Of A Photocopy
Gladiator 2 is a carbon copy of the original but with everything good stripped away.
The original is a movie about revenge with a great general, a leader of the armies, being usurped by the emperor’s evil son. You had an amazing protagonist fighting for the love of his family, and the love he had of his emperor, against an evil tyrant who killed his own father.
You loved Maximus and hated Commodus, it was perfect.
In the sequel, it’s not really clear who the antagonist is. Sure Acacius killed his wife, indirectly, by being the general in charge of the battle but that’s a bit of a reach to go to these lengths for revenge.
In the first movie, you totally get it, in Gladiator 2, there’s no real path to follow, revenge to get invested in or anything else.
In the original, you had Maximus take on Commodus in that final battle. He was finally going to face the man who took everything away from him and from Rome.
In this sequel, Lucius takes on Acacius, but then that’s not the final battle. The third act is just stupid.
Dodgy CGI
I remember younger me having a conversation with a friend about the special effects in the original Gladiator.
I remember saying there weren’t many special effects, until my mate pointed out that none of those colosseums were actually real or full of people. Duh!
But this showed how good the CG was, it’s completely believable to a youthful me.
In Gladiator 2 there is an opening shot of ships about to attack where Lucius lives.
The ships look like the miniatures they used to use in movies like Jason and Argonauts or Clash of the Titans. I love those movies but the effects are a little dated now.
We are living in 2024 and technology has moved on, we now have things called computers and that can create photo realistic visual effects. I haven’t checked because I’ve wasted enough time on this review, but they might have been miniatures.
If it was, it was a bloody stupid idea. If they were CG, someone needs to get fired.
While we’re on the CG, how did they get sharks into a flooded colosseum? I get the flooding, but how the hell would you get sharks in there? Crocodiles would have made more sense, but then that would be the work of a competent writer.
The Cast
Overall, the cast is OK. Mescal does the best that he can with the weak script he’s given. At the end of the movie, he gives a supposedly stirring speech about not fighting anymore.
I actually thought Pascal was the best of the actors in this entire thing. He plays his role well, but he’s just not a threat, or the bad guy, or anything really.
Washington is the worst. I have no idea what direction he was given, but he lurches from Italian mobster to Oliver Reed wannabe to a downright pervert at one point.
Washington is one of the best actors in the world, but he’s grossly miscast in this. A waste of him and his talents.
Overall
The more I think about Gladiator 2, the more I hate it.
As a gladiator movie it’s the standard of a TV movie but with better production. The story is wafer thin, there’s no real sense of anything going on and it just seemed to be there, on the screen, for 2 hours plus.
It could have been an average movie, but what made me angry was that it was riding on the coat tails of the original movie.
This is a carbon copy of the original Gladiator, if the carbon copy was done by a blind man with no hands to hold the pencil, and after being given a very rough description of the original film.
If you love the original movie, stay well away from this one.
I see that it’s got some love online, and we all know I’m a picky sod, but honestly, Gladiator 2 is an insult to the original.
People should stop giving money to Scott and let him retire. He’s talked about Gladiator 3 happening, but honestly, just don’t.
Am I in the wrong here? Was Gladiator 2 that bad? Am I being overly picky? It’s still in the cinemas, but I wouldn’t even bother with streaming.
