As prolific as Ridley Scott has been, especially since the first Gladiator became a runaway hit and best picture Oscar winner, the director usually leaves sequels to others. True, he’s knocked out a couple of Alien prequels in recent years. But after the 1979 original of those, James Cameron took on Aliens in 1986. And in 2017, Denis Villeneuve updated Ridley’s other early classic Blade Runner.
But despite killing off his leading man, Russell Crowe’s Maximus, in the first one, the now 86-year-old Scott has been keen to get back in the arena ever since. It’s easy to see why. Gladiator remains Scott’s second-biggest hit after The Martian – until the receipts come in for this spectacular, if déjà vu-heavy, sequel. As well as the 2001 best picture Oscar, Crowe won best actor, though Scott missed out on best director.
It also made Ancient Romans sexy again. In its dust came legions of toga television, including the HBO series Rome, the NZ-made, garment-challenged Spartacus, and most recently Those About to Die, which took from the same Daniel P Mannix novel that was the original inspiration for Gladiator.
Gladiator II arrives after years of studio and script wrangling. Even Nick Cave was commissioned to write a script, which reportedly involved Crowe’s Maximus, who died at the end of the first film, returning from the dead at the behest of the Roman gods to kill Jesus, then live forever. Which, if nothing else, offered plenty of scope for more sequels and would have stopped Crowe making all those exorcist movies.
By the look of the finished result, Gladiator II’s eventual screenwriter David Scarpa solved the story problem by sticking to the Gladiator I blueprint: Enslaved warrior becomes gladiator, seeks revenge and improved sense of civic pride. It’s set 16 years later in a Rome where the decline and fall of the empire looks not far off.
Director Scott offers more action than the first time. It’s a veritable deadly ancient Olympics. Events include sailing and rowing, fencing, archery, rhino fighting and baboon mixed martial arts.
Luckily for him, Lucius (Paul Mescal) has a talent for all of them. He’s captured when the Roman army invades his hometown in North African Numidia. This naval siege is the first in a series of extravagant action sequences.
He’s taken to Rome, a place he apparently has some history with, and sold into the gladiator stable of Macrinus, a man evidently turning his entertainment biz riches into political influence. He’s played by Denzel Washington, who entertainingly treats the role as if it was one of Shakespeare’s Roman excursions.
He is certainly memorable among a supporting cast that are somewhat lacklustre. Pedro Pascal as General Marcus Acacius leads the charge in that Numidian invasion and figures in the political intrigue back in Rome, but he fails to leave much of a mark.
As his wife Lucilla, one of the few returning from the first film, Connie Nielsen plays the only female character of any lasting significance and unfortunately most of her scenes arrive with a candlelit soap opera quality.
The heirs to Joaquin Phoenix’s terrific paranoid Commodus in the first film are brother emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger), and while they are both deranged in a young Malcolm McDowell kind of way, the double-act just feels too weird and wimpy to rule the roost.
As for the new model Maximus, Irish actor Mescal broods deeply and bleeds bravely. He looks the buff part and does more than enough to carry the film, if not quite reaching the bar set by Crowe. As the trailer has already told us (spoilers follow) his Lucius is the grown-up son of Lucilla and Maximus, who was sent into protective exile in the previous film, only to find he’s wound up with his dad’s old job in the arena.
Thankfully, Scarpa fought the temptation to have Lucilla tell him: “Lucius, I am your mother,” though he’s not above an old gag based on the 1960 Spartacus.
Yes, anachronisms abound. But if you are going to have naval battles in a flooded Colosseum (which were a thing, kind of) why not add sharks? Who’s to say there weren’t mako-sized seawater aqueducts from the coast? Clever Romans.
The deadly aquarium is all part of Scott’s efforts to make this a grander circus maximus. It really is that, even if it’s not as good a movie.
Rating out of five: ★★★ ½
Gladiator II, directed by Ridley Scott, is in cinemas now.
