Gladiator II (3 stars out of 4)
If you fall asleep about halfway through “Gladiator II,” you wouldn’t be faulted for feeling like you’d just seen a weak rehash of the 2000 original film. Up until that point, Ridley Scott’s sequel pretty much hits all the same notes he did the first time—a steely warrior with a clouded past loses his wife and freedom, winds up a gladiator, and works his way toward revenge against the Roman authority responsible.
This time around—16 years after the events of the first film—the steely warrior is Lucius (Paul Mescal), who we meet in Africa just as he’s about to lead a shoreline defense of his people against Roman invaders. The invaders are led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), who orders the death of Lucius’s wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen) (who to be fair, is part of a detachment firing arrows at the Roman forces). Lucius survives the assault, but is captured and shipped off to Rome be a gladiator. There he meets Macrinus (Denzel Washington), who manages the sword-and-sandal cannon fodder the same way Oliver Reed did in the first movie.
The good news is that things don’t play out the same way, and after a modest twist or two, “Gladiator II” pushes into enough unique narrative territory that you start to feel the film was worth the effort. Granted, enough threads connect back to the original that, unless you were a passionate fan of the first film, Scott’s sequel will feel too derivative. Of course, as a non-passionate fan of the original film, I could be wrong—maybe the passionate fans will call this derivative, too.
Beyond the story, you have to look at the performances and the action, and both criteria deliver mixed results. Mescal is a solid lead, though he’ll come up short in the inevitable comparisons to Russell Crowe. Washington is more memorable in his role, even if it doesn’t feel like an especially unique role for the actor; here he’s mostly doing what he does best, and that’s plenty to get the job done.
One of the more intriguing comparisons is between the original heavy Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), whose equivalent here is a brotherly duo of decadent Roman emperors (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger). They serve their roles well, but even combined they lack the violent and childish charisma Phoenix imbued in his character.
The action scenes are pretty solid—the opening battle is good enough that you come away wishing you’d see more of that than the hand-to-hand gladiator stuff to come. Some bizarre CGI monkeys that show up in one battle look too alien to be real, but most of the efforts look effective.
Overall, “Gladiator II” works as a watchable movie, but it doesn’t do quite enough to justify its status as a sequel. Just make sure you stick around past the first hour, or it won’t work in either case.
“Gladiator II” is rated R for some graphic bloody violence, as well as some sexual content.