Gladiator II
PARAMOUNT
One statement of iconic cinema is Russel Crowe delivering the line “What we do in life echoes in eternity” as Maximus and, unfortunately, such a statement could not be further from the truth in Ridley Scott’s follow-up to his 2000 classic Gladiator. Gladiator II is a feature that not only runs incredibly dry but is a major step down in terms of conviction and might that its predecessor holds. As a devout Ridley Scott fanatic and Gladiator fan, after twenty-four years of development hell with multiple wild screenplays and ideas proposed, to finally land on Paul Mescal as Maximus’ child and power-hungry Denzel Washington (teaming up again after American Gangster) with ambivalent allegiances to star in Gladiator II, all on the surface gives considerable excitement the possibilities of where this can go. The result, however, is a simplistic, predictable and wholly unoriginal take that takes the infrastructure and skeleton of Gladiator and repurposes its corpse.
Not only is this a vast disappointment but Gladiator II seems to strip away so much of Scott’s own thematic and tone of emotive catharsis: be it morality, empathy and the like. While Napoleon also felt stripped of this theme, its operandi to showcase a severely ego-driven character remains a compelling and fascinating insight. This venture is suspiciously and wholly void of such substance and feels hauntingly flat and hollow in having a purpose aside from repurposing IP. What significance or vested interest does Gladiator succeed at showcasing on a thematic, cinematic or entertainment level? It fails to evoke on all three outputs and, from a Scott feature, it once again feels suspiciously void of avenues that even this director seems to be interested in. Perhaps it’s Scott making up for lost time due to two of his franchises in his Alien Covenant sequel stagnating with Alvarez’ Alien Romulus seeing roaring success and his missed opportunity to direct Blade Runner 2049 and seeing it quickly enter Villeneuve into cultural cinematic stardom. Perhaps twice shy has led Scott to jump into this opportunity for someone else not to continue another one of his properties, and thus this may answer the question of his lack of emotive involvement.
Nevertheless, Scott continuously showcases desires both in theme and craft to evolve and elevate the material he gets his hands on. This venture shows no signs of either aspect involved with this production. Here, it’s hard to pinpoint any moments of cinematic craft that look or sound exceptional. Nothing comes close to Crowe fighting a tiger, hands going through the wheat, and Liza Gerard's ethereal sounds over Hans Zimmer’s score in this sequel. Where is the iconography in what made Gladiator brilliant in simplistic joy? Everything is heightened to a point in which it loses focus on the individual and person and turns to trying to provoke the sequence and set piece. Seeing a ship battle in the collesium or Gladiators battling monkeys is one extravagance but each time such sequences come on screen, they constantly lose grasp of what these characters are fighting for, who they are even. Gladiator II forgets about what it even wants to explore in what is happening in Rome, what is happening to Lucius in these events. It never wants to give an inch of exploration in character depth or dynamic substance regarding arcs. What the viewer sees and is explained to them is as much as the feature is willing or can manage to muster. It is that simplistic and underwhelming. Going as far as to say that there is simply a tragic reskin of its predecessor to a point in which it feels degrading and patronising that this is being sold as the next chapter when it is retelling the same story in genuinely direct replication in characters, motifs and sequences
All that said, Denzel Washington gives a fabulously flamboyant portrayal of Roman ambivalence. His motifs are both unpredictable and treacherous with the resulting villainy and escape of how much the character worms his way into Roman hierarchy is by far the most compelling and interesting narrative the feature explores. Washington understands the brief with perfect delivery and his delivery of dialogue enraptures the viewer as it does the supporting cast like the charming snake his character is. Mescal does a splendid job in iconography and wrestling with the emotive aspect of his character – as limited as it is – and while his arc with on-screen mother Nielsen is vastly underwritten and underdeveloped it does offer a slither of emotive immersion. However, the role is written so incredibly one-note and repeated thematically and narratively everything Gladiator and Crowe achieved all those years ago with so little investment to be found in this character due to how disappointing and uninteresting Lucius is.
The two other major disappointments are two-fold. One of the most interesting aspects of this narrative both in theme and arc is that of Pedro Pascal whose character is stuck in the middle of honouring Rome and a family breaking apart (does this sound familiar to anyone who saw the original?) and, with as little depth given, provides a tremendous amount of ability as well as investment into his role as a character severely torn with actions that have caused these events to unfold. The problem is that the narrative and run in time cannot support his anti-hero role and that of Washington. Once it ultimately becomes clear who Gladiator II proposes as the major villain, it all crumbles away, leaving this character to rot in the background. The other major problem is the pantomime villains of the piece: Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger. Granted, the pantomime and clown conviction are a clear tonal indicators of the ridiculousness and circus of its time, and while Quinn finds a good balance in something between doing his own thing and replicating Phoenix, Hechinger does not come out of this as clean. Even after the aforementioned tonal conviction, the two go far too much in the vein of hamming the characters up to a point in which they severely lose control and grasp of both believability and fear. Hechinger, however, is an unironic walking-talking disaster. That being said, he may be a last mutiny’s addition taking over from Barry Keoghan, but whatever he is bringing here is a disastrous portrayal of silliness that looks and sounds bizarre without a merit of substance. The accent, conviction, and delivery all feel way off in trying to craft a secretly ill and mentally unstable character. It is all surface-level depiction, a factor that unfortunately doesn’t feel amiss in a film that on the whole feels similar in description.
It’s hard to see the point in something like Gladiator II, as a fan and devoured patron of Scott’s filmography, this venture sits in the unwelcoming territory of a project that is the vanity of spectacle rather than a thematically rich and compelling piece of a cinema. It is a feature that is far more vested in spectacle and set-piece and shockingly forgets about the individual and brooding development of its characters which made its predecessor so beloved and poignant. While Washington and Pascal do as much as they can to evoke a sense of excitement and depth in the material, what is presented in the underwhelming arc of Mescal – and throughout for that matter – is not nearly enough to ride a one hundred and fifty-minute beast. While Scott may seem keen to continue this narrative in the newly announced Gladiator III, which the directors describe as a Godfather-inspired character study of what now rests on the shoulders of Lucius, the lacking and severely underwhelming opportunity to develop said theme and story in this output alone shows no desire or material worth considering another disappointing debacle of an outing.
