Time to go back, way back. The year is 2000 and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator is storming cinemas. With Russell Crowe as its hero and Joaquin Phoenix as a bad dude, the historical epic—a vengeance story featuring some brilliant sets—swept the box office, awards shows, and school classrooms for end-of-term viewing forevermore (I believe I have seen the first 35 minutes of Gladiator about seven times). Was it inevitable that we would get a sequel? To a film which earned over USD400 million and won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor? Perhaps the only surprise is that it has taken 24 years for Gladiator II to enter the arena: this sequel was not built in a day.
Maybe Ridley was waiting for the right lead. He seems to have found one in Normal People’s Paul Mescal, a very fine actor who carries social media trends and fashion movements on his well-turned shoulders, to take up Crowe’s mantle. Mescal plays Lucius, who has been living in northern Africa with his wife when the big bad Roman army come knocking. After the city of Numidia is conquered, a widowed Lucius is ferried to Rome where he is put in a ring with some (remarkably terrible CGI) baboons. Impressed by Lucius’ willingness to bite monkeys, human trafficker-cum-politico Macrinus (Denzel Washington) coaches Lucius into the Colosseum where he is forced to fight sharks, rhinos and personal demons. Around him, Rome burns: twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) are running roughshod over the senate, leading Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) to plan an insurrection with her husband General Acacius (Pedro Pascal).
No surprises with how any of this unfolds (even fewer surprises if you have seen the first movie), and the straightforwardness of the plot makes it clear that audiences should simply behold the spectacle. In the most talked-about staging at the Colosseum, the arena is flooded in a recreation of the Battle of Salamis—a sea battle between the Greeks and the Persian navy for those not paying attention during classical civilisation—and Lucius must fight against against some (remarkably terrible CGI) sharks. In another, Lucius fights a Roman atop a rhino. None of this is any match to Lucius, who does not seem afraid of these challenges at any point, even for a single second. Macrinus attributes that success to Lucius’ “rage”, though the star gladiator is also cunning and smart, which adds to his appeal.
With his aquiline features, Mescal certainly looks the part—which becomes a welcome visual gag involving a statue that shares his likeness—and has the jacked arms and legs and shoulders to boot (a result we can attribute to Mescal’s training regime and four prescribed ready-made meals a day). Mescal’s Lucius has the vibe of a man who has never willingly made a joke in his entire life, which is fine, but a sense of humour—this is a ridiculous movie—would not have gone amiss. If he struggles to sustain a leading man performance – well, it’s a two hour plus movie, and the script is uninspiring.
Hechinger and Quinn have the juiciest roles here as the demented brothers whose grip on an empire is crumbling at an alarming rate (what the plot lacks in originality, the pacing makes up for in lunacy). Geta is the more strategic brother, while Caracalla is suffering from a sexually transmitted disease which has now begun to affect his brain as well. Washington just about takes the entire film as Macrinus, who ascends to the most powerful men in Rome in a matter of days. It’s a giddy, ridiculous rise, and Washington’s performance matches that. (The same cannot be said for all the supporting cast, who occasionally read lines as though their scripts were typed out in Latin.)
And Scott sure knows how to deliver what an audience wants. His direction is frenetic, and the film works well as a Roman soap opera. There are moments of real tension in this corrupt Rome, like when Acasius is welcomed by the emperors on his victory lap through the city streets. As the general moves from the hollering crowds to the hush of the emperors’ enclave, from public mania to private menace, there are emotional stakes that are largely absent from the arena. Scott pairs that with a fun, gossipy undertone throughout; servants hide in bushes, whispers spread through crowds. Even the sillier aspects—an anachronistic newspaper, a pet monkey in a frilly outfit—are enjoyable swings, which seem to say: not everything has to be taken too seriously.
It’s a shame that, among all that campy drama, the emotional impact is minimal: the story is simply so obvious, Lucius’ virtues so pure, and his journey to success so unchallenged that the ending arrives with a shrug, rather than an imperial thumbs up.
