They say “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” But the Romans gave a thumbs down when they didn’t like a gladiator. I’m not legally allowed to do that for Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II” because somebody trademarked “thumb reviews” (thank you very much, Roger and Gene), but let’s just say the temptation was there. “Gladiator II” isn’t a complete fiasco, and God knows there are worse sword-and-sandal movies, but it isn’t a worthy follow-up to the original.
We’re going to need to play a little catch-up here, because “Gladiator II” assumes you remember the plot of the original. Russell Crowe starred as Maximus, a Roman General who — thanks to the murderous schemes of Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) — became a slave, and then worked his way up to the most famous gladiator in Rome. Maximus’ popularity and open defiance of the Emperor was dangerous to Commodus’ regime, so he challenged Maximus to a duel in the Colosseum. It was the end of the movie, so Commodus died. Also it was a big, serious historical epic, so Maximus died too.
That means “Gladiator II” needed a whole new gladiator. This time we get Lucius (Paul Mescal), who defends his city from General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) in the film’s opening battle. Lucius’ wife dies and Lucius winds up a prisoner of war. Soon he’s a gladiator, owned by the wealthy extrovert Macrinus (Denzel Washington), who uses Lucius as a pawn. While Lucius wins the hearts of the Romans by killing lots of people for their amusement, Macrinus quickly manipulates his way to power.
Oh yeah, and Lucius is Maximus’ son. Remember the kid that was played by Spencer Treat Clark in “Gladiator?” He grew up and became Paul Mescal. Which is a little messed up since Spencer Treat Clark is still a working actor and he could have totally pulled this role off. No shade to Paul Mescal, who is an incredibly talented performer, but if we’re going to go to all the trouble of bringing back Connie Nelsen and Derek Jacobi — which they did, or I wouldn’t have brought it up — why stop there?
But I digress. “Gladiator II” goes through a lot of the same motions as “Gladiator.” Lucius, who briefly has a different name for unconvincing plot reasons, has a series of theatrical battles in the arena. He kills lots of guys. He kills a bunch of animals. At one point they fill the whole colosseum with water and sharks, and look, we all know it’s just a movie but come on. If want us to believe they put sharks in the colosseum then make a movie about catching and transporting multiple killer sharks from the ocean, to Rome, a whole 17 frickin’ miles — I assume they came from Ostia, that’s the only port city that makes sense — in 211 A.D. “Jaws” meets “Fitzcarraldo” meets “Spartacus.” You haven’t seen that one before, have you?
While all that weirdness is going on, General Acacius conspires with his wife — who just happens to be Lucius’s mother (I told you they brought Connie Nielsen back) — to depose the twin Emperors Geta and Caracalla (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger). They’re outlandish cartoon supervillains who wear their kinks on their sleeves and own a pet monkey, which probably shouldn’t have as much political power as it does. They’re petty, incompetent tyrants, and they’re easily manipulated by Macrinus, who is a charming and devious devil.
So we have a different gladiator and two evil emperors, but a lot of “Gladiator II” is familiar to the point of redundance. David Scarpa’s screenplay — with a co-story credit by Peter Craig — draws so many parallels between the new film and the old one that it seems to forget that dramatic parallels have to mean something, or else they’re just two straight lines. One looks just like the other, they go in the same direction and they get to the same place. This isn’t what we do in life echoing in eternity. It’s just repetitive.
That’s not to say that “Gladiator II” doesn’t have its charms. One emerges from the theater thinking we may have just had a good time, but the more it sits with you, the more you realize that no matter how epic the battles were — and they certainly were epic — they didn’t have anywhere near the same impact as the original. “Gladiator” was a story about characters who hated each other, and all the political machinations flowed through that one personal story. It was gigantic and intimate, all at the same time.
“Gladiator II” skimps on the character, especially Lucius. The death of Lucius’ wife is sad, but we only got to see them together for about a minute, so it’s dramatically perfunctory. He doesn’t even get to wax rhapsodic the way Maximus did. Lucius wants revenge against General Acacius, even though Acacius is actually a good guy (more or less), but they go most of the movie without meeting each other, so the conflict is merely academic. Paul Mescal is a great actor and he’s very convincing when he’s beating someone to death with his fists. He just can’t do magic without a spell book.
And then there’s Maximus, who doesn’t appear in this film but somehow manages to be a distraction in almost every scene. He was a famous gladiator quite a few years ago, and people still remember his exploits (since he killed an emperor, after all), but the movie refuses to shut up about him. This makes Lucius seem like a cog in history instead of a driving force. Or worse, a “chosen one” merely going through the motions until he reaches his destiny. Maximus quickly becomes “Gladiator II’s” albatross. One can almost imagine a studio note from on high, paraphrasing the words of Homer Simpson: “Whenever Maximus is not on screen, all the other characters should be saying, ‘Where’s Maximus?’”
“Gladiator II” has everything it needs in the action department. The battles are certainly spectacular. It’s the story that falls apart. The whole thing hangs on contrivance and familiarity, not characters, so the fights don’t seem to matter much. Even Denzel Washington, who has all the best scenes and looks like he’s enjoying himself more than he has on screen in years, can’t save this material because the material isn’t focused on him. Macrinus is a lot more interesting than our hero. Come to think of it, so is General Acacius. They could have carried the whole movie themselves, one or the other or both. Which means the thing that’s holding “Gladiator II” back is, weirdly, the fact that it’s about a gladiator.
All I am left with are the words of Emperor Commodus: “It vexes me. I’m terribly vexed.”
A Paramount Pictures release, “Gladiator II” opens exclusively in theaters on Nov. 22.
