Gladiator II (2024)

Rated R for the sheer pride the movie has with gore.  It's not gory throughout, but there are so many moments where I had a visceral response (and not in the worst way) to how surprisingly over the top the death was.  The language, however, is pretty mild.  I'm actually a little floored by this.  You really do just have to get comfortable with the nonstop, occasionally over-the-top violence.

DIRECTOR:  Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott is either an incredible director or a forgettable director.  I'm so sorry.  I hate talking that way.  I feel like a bully, especially considering that I haven't made a darned movie in my life.  Heck, I'd go as far as to say that if I worked my hardest, I couldn't make a movie look as good as Gladiator II.  But in terms of my brain being scratched by something interesting, my goodness Gladiator II is almost a burden to watch.

It almost seems like the easiest take to have.  I mean, there really is no upside to making a Gladiator II, especially as a legacy sequel.  The trailer didn't look great.  Everyone who saw it said it was pretty terrible.  Yeah, the fact that I saw this movie as a burden that had to be watched to complete my Academy Award nomination collection is not a shock.  I'll go even further.  I'm one of the five people on the planet who didn't care for the first one.  It's not that it might not be a well-made movie.  I tend to view historical epics as dull.  People keep trying to get me to watch Master and Commander and that really holds no interest over me.  The notion of one Gladiator movie was more than enough.  But the idea that we were returning to this world seemed superfluous.  And since I'm not the biggest Gladiator fan in the world, it's been a minute since I've seen the first one.

This creates some interesting takes on the movie.  Because I'm not beholden to a movie that most people consider to be a classic, I don't view the characters from the first movie to have much value.  It is insane how many people in Gladiator II view Maximus like the audience views Maximus. He has that "Where is Luke Skywalker?" energy from the Star Wars sequels.  Maximus had an epic story in the first one.  But a generation has passed.  It seems like Maximus's death had little impact on how Rome runs.  Why would he be treated as this hero of the resistance if nothing shifted all that much?  Part of it seems like Rome in Gladiator II lives in the world that has Internet and means of keeping a legend alive.  I don't really buy that.   When Lucius finds out that Maximus is his father, it really shouldn't have that much of an impact on him.  

I mean, they go as far as to have a secret room where they hung up his armor.  Scott seemed to be going for an altar like vibe, inspiring the downtrodden to have hope to rise up against their oppressors.  But it really just comes across as a man cave where someone hung up a jersey that they got on eBay.  On top of that, there are English words on top of the jersey.  All of the effort to create the aesthetic of Ancient Rome and it goes away so we can have a mid quote over it?  It's just silly.

A lot of Gladiator II's problems (which, I have to admit, isn't an abomination as much as it is just kind of bad) comes from not developing its protagonist too much.  Like Game of Thrones, Gladiator II takes a lot of time setting up stories with separate factions that ultimately all come to a head.  But it also stresses that Lucius is the main character.  That's a real problem because Lucius, as cool as he can be at times, is also the least compelling character.  As the eponymous gladiator, he's kind of stuck in one place for the majority of the film.  He has the least amount of agency in the movie, meaning he's always reacting to things --mostly threats to his life.  But he's not exactly proactive.  If anything, the antagonist of the movie is far more of an ally than the film chooses to admit.  

Listen, Denzel Washington's Macrinus is the best part of this movie.  I don't agree that he's hamming it up over the movie.  I think he's just having more fun than the other actors are.  Thank goodness that there's a decent amount of Macrinus in the movie because he kept the story going.  But Macrinus as the antagonist doesn't really make a lick of sense.  Macrinus is the guy who has wheels-within-wheels plans.  He's quasi-sympathetic, but Scott refuses to indulge that too much.  Again, super charismatic to watch. But doesn't make sense.  He's the power-grab villain.  He sees these two emperors tripping over themselves to fail first and sees his opportunity.  Cool.  That makes a lot of sense.  But because this movie is called Gladiator II, he needs to somehow tie his power grab over the Colosseum somehow.  It makes sense with his character, considering that he's in charge of the games.

When he sees Lucius and how darned talented he is, a series of plans happen that depend way too much on coincidence.  Lucius wants Acacius dead and that's his price for fighting in the Colosseum.  Okay, that's a story beat.  He promises him Acacius's head.  But the only way that is going to happen is if Acacius is revealed to be a traitor.  Boy, it was really lucky for Macrinus that Acacius was planning on making a move against the emperors or else...um?  Why is he going to insane lengths to please this gladiator?  For all he knew, Lucius would have died in the Colosseum.  After all, he technically lost a fight.  It was only through kind of backhandedness that Lucius comes out alive.  He's talented, but so were probably many of the other gladiators in the ring.  The idea of investing that much in a guy that it would make or break a coup?  

And thank goodness for Macrinus that Acacius was planning something underhanded.  It seemed like a lot of the plan was on that lynchpin that ultimately didn't matter.  It's odd how much of the movie is trying to get Acacius and Lucius in the ring together only to have Lucius forgive Acacius.  It's almost like the movie is one big distraction from the fact that Macrinus is supposed to be a bad guy, but without a direct tie to the protagonist.  A lot is engineered to get Macrinus to be this big baddie in the movie.  When Lucius ultimately reveals his true background, it seems odd that he's so focused on Macrinus.  The dynamic between those two doesn't seem to be one of animosity.  Now, I'm going to backpedal a bit because I'm not trying to be intentionally close-minded.  I get that there's a duty to Rome that Lucius, as the Prince of Rome, has to fulfill.  He's chasing Macrinus for the good of Rome.  But there's supposed to be this hatred between Macrinus and Lucius and Scott doesn't really build that up.  From any academic perspective, we could look at it as Master / Slave.  But even Lucius stresses that he is not a slave, but a gladiator.  It's a cool line, but it also erodes the hatred between these two people who actually seem to enjoy each other's company for the majority of the movie.

But when all is said and done, I don't care for gladiator movies.  I don't care to watch a movie that sets up a bunch of set pieces where a protagonist fights against a series of escalating challenges.  Like, the first movie did that.  Even fans of the first movie probably acknowledge that the movie did the same things, only better.  Nothing about this was entertaining to me.  In terms of how pretty it looked, Gladiator II is fine.  Even the performances were fine.  Not much stood out as something incredible.  But a lot of that comes from the fact that there isn't much meat here to play off of.