Harry Moore
Words by Harry Moore
Ridley Scott returns to Ancient Rome in this sequel to his Best Picture-winning epic that sees a young warrior named Lucius (Paul Mescal) follow in the footsteps of Maximus, as a gladiator who stands up to a tyrannical emperor.
Scott is a filmmaker with a workhorse-like attitude toward his career. Rarely too far away from the film set for long, Scott has amassed a large and varied filmography that has dabbled in a range of genres over the span of several decades. Known for his grandiose visual sense, Scott defined the aesthetic of science fiction cinema for a generation with “Blade Runner” and “Alien.” He also reinvigorated the historical epic with his early 2000s run of blockbusters set in the ancient world, the crown jewel of which being his sweeping revenge tale, “Gladiator.” Scott has shown an unmatched sense for executing exhilarating battles on the big screen, having done so in “Gladiator,” “Kingdom of Heaven,” “Napoleon” and the underseen “The Last Duel.” With “Gladiator II” he shows that that ability has not waned with the years, conjuring some of the most exciting sword-based action seen on film in a long time.
The exhilarating set pieces are certainly the main attraction here with “Gladiator II” falling prey to the same flaws that have hobbled plenty of the other long-gestating legacy sequels that have become so frequent in recent years. On the spectrum of legacy sequels, “Gladiator II” falls closely to “The Force Awakens” playbook of safely retelling the same story again, only with greater reverence for those original props and characters; similar results are found by subbing in Maximus’ armor for the Millennium Falcon. Just like in “The Force Awakens,” the original hero’s victory has been undone between the events of the two films with Rome now being controlled by a pair of tyrannical twin emperors after the death of the villainous Commodus. Given the ending of “Gladiator,” it wasn’t likely that a long-delayed sequel would be made in the mold of “Top Gun: Maverick,” maybe the best example of this trend, with an aged Maximus training a crew of budding young gladiators to be ready for the coliseum, only to find that he is still the best there is at what he does. It was also equally unlikely that Scott’s film would go the bold route of Lana Wachowski’s “Matrix: Resurrections” which directly calls out Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy for needing to reanimate Neo and Trinity in the first place, but it is still disheartening that the safest, and as a result least interesting, path is the one most taken for these films. If studios are too afraid to attempt to market original concepts, they could at least attempt to Trojan horse some more daring stories into their safe bets.
“Gladiator” and its sequel are exemplary of the respective eras of Hollywood they were made in. Side by side, the two films could serve as an example of what differentiates a capable actor from a captivating movie star. Throughout his career, Russell Crowe is generally an actor with a captivating screen presence, particularly in films such as “LA Confidential” and “The Nice Guys,” but in Gladiator he was transcendent, almost capturing the essence of a movie star on the screen. From the moment the camera started rolling on him as Maximus, Crowe was magnetic in the role, believable as an admired military general and as a brutal fighter. Crowe could convey as much gravitas through his innocuous, small choices as his many bravura speeches, giving an instantly iconic performance that won him an Oscar and made him an eternal fixture on stadium jumbotrons: “On my command, unleash hell” was practically designed to get a crowd fired up. It was always going to be a tall order for any actor to step into the coliseum and leave a similar impression and comparing the two lead performances may not be entirely fair, given that the air of imitation is baked into the new film, but given how closely “Gladiator II” sticks to the original’s formula it invites comparison, often to the detriment of the sequel. There’s no denying that Mescal is a gifted actor, having become the darling of independent cinema and the West End, but it appears that leading a sweeping historical blockbuster may have been a large step taken too soon. Lucius is a character who, by design, cannot escape Maximus’ looming shadow, and by extension, Mescal doesn’t fully measure up to Crowe who was at the absolute peak of his powers as an actor when he took on that role. The would-be rousing speeches do not land with the weight Crowe delivered, and Mescal is often drowned out by the spectacle and outshone by his veteran co-stars, namely Denzel Washington, the premier example of a performer who manages to be both a compelling and nuanced actor and charismatic movie star who can hold the screen with just a look. To underline how seismic a leap this was for the young Irish actor, it is probable that Washington’s pay was larger than the collective budgets of every film Mescal had appeared in prior to “Gladiator II.” It may be the decades of experience that Washington has over Mescal that allows the veteran actor to dominate the film, but truth be told Washington has been in a league of his own throughout most of his career, able to share the screen across from any other actor and more than capable of carrying a film at any scale on his own. Denzel Washington is one of the best leading men and American actors of all time, giving him free reign to push his natural, inimitable charisma to its limit was probably the smartest decision this film could make.
The shortcomings of “Gladiator II” compared to its predecessor exemplify the problems with the current trend of legacy sequels and the evasive nature of movie stars in this generation of Hollywood. Still, though, it is an entertaining and often thrilling spectacle that allows two of cinema’s greatest patrons, in Ridley Scott and Denzel Washington, to show off the mastery of their craft.
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