R | 2h 28m | Action, Drama | Nov. 22, 2024
Returning to the well all these years later, Scott gives us a new story that’s set 16 years after the events of the first film. Rome is now mired in conquest and foreign wars at the behest of infantile, bumbling-idiot twin Roman emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn, “A Quiet Place: Day One”) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger).
Scott’s desire (or fatigue) to rely on what worked before is almost immediately apparent. Scott indulges in massive pomp and circumstance, camp, and debauchery. Also grand spectacle, as in, for example, when the bloodthirsty Romans have filled the Colosseum with ocean water, put some ships in there loaded with bow and arrow-wielding gladiators, along with numerous 25-foot long bad-CGI-generated great white sharks to chomp anybody who falls overboard leaking blood.
Scott doesn’t really play up the borderline homoerotic opportunities generally present in scenes featuring largely unclad, sweaty menfolk bashing each other senseless. However, the relationship and scenes between Lucius and and former gladiator-turned-healer Ravi (Alexander Karim) are rather suspicious. Scott also brings back, for an encore, the wailing-woman-soundtrack-of-sorrow you may recall from 2000.
‘Gladiator II’
“Gladiator II” is all about Lucius (Paul Mescal). If you remember the original film, you know that he was sent away from Rome as a boy, for his safety, by his mother Lucilla (Connie Nielsen).
Fifteen years later, the now-strapping Lucius lives with his wife, Arishat (Yuval Gonen) in Nova Africa. Lucius, who’s some kind of military chieftan, is forced to defend his seaside city from the long arm of the Roman empire. The invasion is led by Gen. Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) and a vast, bad CGI Roman armada. Arishat, an accomplished archer, is slain in battle, and Lucius is enslaved.
Upon his successful return, Acacius is feted by the above-mentioned decadent emperor-boys, who turn down his simple request to spend a little time with his wife, and wish to send him immediately packing to seize more territories for their greedy little mitts—regardless of the fact that the empire can’t feed its current population. So Acacius conspires to foment insurrection and turn the Roman army against the boy emperors—to make Rome great again.
Now, Acacius’s wife happens to be Lucilla, the blue-blooded daughter of the great Marcus Aurelius, but what’s confusing is that while Lucilla is indeed Lucius’s mother, Lucius’s father was given a different identity in the first movie than in the sequel. I won’t reveal who Lucius’s sequel-father is, suffice it to say that, as Lucius plots his revenge against Gen. Acacius—it’s not Oedipal.
Lucius has been up until this point demonstrating his ability to take on any amount of frightening behemoths, with immense nonchalant fearlessness. That includes human behemoths, as well as really, really bad CGI hairless (or are they maybe shaved for enhanced Colosseum shock-and-awe hideousness?) prehistoric-looking baboons who’ve apparently survived since the Cretaceous period.
Thumbs Down
The political machinations get quite melodramatic, but there’s not really a satisfying throughline; “Gladiator II” relies on the CGI set pieces and since those clearly haven’t been technologically upgraded in two decades, it fails to hold one’s attention.The actors get what kind of movie this is: It wants to be “Braveheart,” with Mescal even intoning Mel Gibson’s “Hold … hold … hold” line. But “Gladiator II” is no “Braveheart.” Instead of Mel, we get more of a Richard Burton delivery from Mescal that strays in the direction of the scene in “Scrooged,” where Bill Murray hammily impersonates Burton for the benefit of a couple of old theater buffs in a bar who swear he’s Burton, and won’t take no for answer until he speaks some Shakespeare. The joke being that Bill Murray hilariously does sort of look like Richard Burton.
Speaking of hamming it up, Denzel Washington hasn’t relished playing a baddie this much since “Training Day.” He has lots of fun smoothing his Roman robes with ring-laden fingers and grinning toothy grins. He appears to be playing Macrinus as the backstabbing Shakespearean character Iago in “Othello.” Maybe it was preparation for his upcoming Broadway appearance as Othello in February. Speaking of toothy grins, all the A-listers have excellent teeth. Too bad “Gladiator II” has none.
