Disappointing ‘GLADIATOR II’ Offers Bread and Circus

When civilization is on the brink of collapse, proffer bread and circus. The entire spectacle of Roman gladiatorial battles was perhaps history’s most extravagant example of distracting the hoi polloi with empty spectacle as the structural integrity of their civilization collapsed around them. At least until the end-stage capitalistic United States came along. So long as bellies are full and minds are lulled by materially empty entertainment, the masses remain appeased. Nearly two millennia later, we very much live in an age of bread and circus (thanks a lot Captain America), and that’s exactly what Ridley Scott offers with his long-awaited sequel, Gladiator II – a film that, despite its supreme spectacle, feels calorically empty and narratively unsatisfying.

It’s been a generation since Maximus Aurelius died in the Colosseum, fighting to restore Marcus Aurelius’ dream that was Rome. In his place stands a box-squared, sinew-strapped Lucius (Paul Mescal), or Hallo, the pseudonym he goes by for almost the whole movie. For whatever reason, a good portion of the plot is predicated on the lineage of Mescal’s protagonist—an aspect that’s ostensibly cloaked in mystery, yet painfully obvious and revealed in nearly every piece of Gladiator II’s promotional material. We’re meant to guess at who Mescal may actually be (he’s Lucius, obviously), though the real mystery is why he’s no longer Roman and harbors a searing rage for his homeland.

The film opens with one of many captivating action set pieces as the Roman army, led by yet another dude named Marcus (Pedro Pascal), invades the African nation of Munidia, which Lucius has come to call home. Marcus and Lucius face off in battle; the latter’s wife is killed at Marcus’s command, and Lucius, along with his defeated allies, is enslaved and sold into the gladiator ring. The parallels to the first film don’t stop there: Lucius must stand against the might of the Roman Empire by proving himself in the Colosseum, determined to avenge his wife by eventually winning his freedom and slaying her murderer. Are you not entertained? The plot is further complicated by the ambitions of Lucius’s slave-master, Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a Machiavellian figure who worms his way into the good graces of the not-well-loved, syphilitic emperor brothers, played with goofball panache by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger. The latter’s brain is so far gone from loin and brain rot that he tries to install his capuchin monkey as the general of his armies. This is just one of the many silly aspects of Gladiator II that ultimately come to define Ridley Scott’s sequel, 24 years in the making. Macrinus’ ascent is the main thing that sets this story apart from its predecessor but it also doesn’t make much sense and is thatched together with the thinnest degree of credulity. The plot turns out to be both redundant and convoluted, making it hard to really invest in its characters or their journeys to Make Rome Great Again.

Unfortunately, Gladiator II is very much the kind of sequel that depends entirely on its predecessor, mirroring its themes, echoing its aesthetics, and mostly replicating major swaths of its plot. From a purely narrative standpoint, Lucius’s path closely rhymes with Maximus’s, centering the story on the concept of a single wronged, near messianic figure rising up against the might of an empire to undo its injustices. Sound familiar? Lucius’s saga feels old hat because we’ve seen nearly this exact story before—but with a much more emotionally compelling center. By the end of this match, I felt mostly unmoved and ready to move on and probably never think of this wannabe epic sequel again.

For his part, Mescal proves to be a capable action hero. He’s stoic, swole, and angry—righteous rage personified. Lucius stands in stark opposition to the current emperors of Rome, who demand the love of their people and constant territorial expansion, while he himself is anything but entitled: stripped of his would-be princely title and forced to operate from a place of angry anonymity. It’s a fitting counterpart to the tenderness and humanity he’s showcased in roles in Normal People, All of Us Strangers, and Aftersun, though the somewhat generic sweep of the character’s lone wolf, omega personality strands him in a sea of one-dimensionality. Denzel has already garnered a fair amount of early buzz for his role as the opportunistic gladiator trainer, which is a bit head-scratching. I found his performance rather anachronistic—basically Denzel being Denzel, but in increasingly gaudier togas. His tics and mannerisms are classic Denzel 101; he’s just also doing philosopher cosplay.

But since Gladiator II is basically all buff and fluff, it’s worth noting just how muscular so many of the production elements are. The set design, costumes, action choreography, and the liberal use of battle-ready jungle animals (one Chekhov’s tiger notwithstanding) are often outstanding. Much has been made of the film’s ballooning budget—which apparently grew so unwieldy that turning a profit became nearly impossible—but you can mostly see the dollars on the screen. This thing looks like 310 million bucks (the inconceivably high reported final budget)…until it doesn’t. By the final moments, it’s almost as if the coffers had finally dried up and there wasn’t a single dime left for something as basic as color correction. Like much of the movie’s plot machinations, it’s truly baffling. And such is Gladiator II in a nutshell: an often rather stunning feast for the senses that just doesn’t add up to much beyond a mere reflection of its past victory. When in Rome…

CONCLUSION: Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II is a beast of an audio-visual experience, best taken in on the biggest IMAX screen you can find. But its convoluted plotting and mimicry of its predecessor make it merely serviceable—and ultimately forgettable.