‘Gladiator II’ movie review: Ridley Scott makes the ultimate Director’s Cut

There is a hint of desperation about Gladiator II, Ridley Scott’s long-gestating follow-up to his 2000 sword-and-sandals classic. Everything is bigger, longer, and more numerous. There is not just a cursory 60-second battle at the beginning to establish the valour of the lead character – there is a full-on war sequence. The gladiators don’t just fight wolves, tigers, and seven-foot barbarians, they fight rhinos, hairless baboons, and sharks. There is not just one infantile emperor laying waste to Rome through greed and petulance – there are two. It’s as if the director were standing in the arena himself, arms raised, echoing that line from the first film, “Are you not entertained?!”

The answer, rather surprisingly, is “Yes.” Sure, Gladiator II is almost the identical story as the first film. The dialogue can be unintentionally comedic, especially and somewhat enjoyably, in moments of utmost gravity. It also lacks the focus of the original. But if you’re looking for spectacle, visceral hand-to-hand combat, and yet another reason to think about the Roman Empire every day, this film delivers, and then some. 

In the original, Russell Crowe played Maximus, the glowering Roman soldier beloved by the masses who returned to Rome as an enslaved gladiator to seek revenge for the murder of his wife and child. This one picks up about two decades later when Lucius (Paul Mescal), who was just a wide-eyed boy in the first film, is now a happily married man in Numidia going by the name “Hanno.” He and his wife, Arishat, lead a blissful agrarian life, complete with chickens and bags of grain until the Romans descend. They lay siege to the city, kill Arishat, and enslave Lucius. 

Following in Maximus’ sandaled footsteps, Lucius is sold into slavery, becomes a star gladiator, and is convinced by his long-lost mother, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), to try to overthrow the empire. He also discovers that he is the son of Maximus, after all, essentially erasing the murdered wife and child who Maximus yearned for throughout the first film. 

All of these redundancies would be tedious if it weren’t for their feverish execution. Scott knows how to stage a fight sequence, and unlike most big-budget action movies nowadays, the violence carries a visceral, thudding weight. In one scene, Lucius loses his weapons and resorts to chomping down on the leg of a baboon, coming up for air with blood-stained teeth. In the arena, he takes a collaborative approach with the other gladiators, giving Scott ample opportunity to impale, disembowel, and behead the maximum number of stuntmen.

The peripheral characters are dialled up a notch as well. Denzel Washington is having the time of his life playing Macrinus, a former slave turned political power player who purchases Lucius for political ends. Never has Washington been so loosey-goosey in a performance. Never has anyone enjoyed adjusting the sleeves of a cloak so much. There is one moment in which he delivers the word “politics” in approximately five syllables, and I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that it deserves an Oscar. It’s not the performance as a whole – just that single-word line delivery. 

Meanwhile, Pedro Pascal is soulful and handsomely grizzled as the Roman general who wants to hang up his toga and enjoy a modest life with Lucilla. He fills an intermediate role in the film, picking up the exhaustion and integrity of Maximus while providing Lucius with a symbol of Rome’s bloody conquest. 

Most crucial to the success of the film, however, is Mescal, who wisely opts for underplaying his hand. As Lucius, he isn’t so much world-weary as he is world-wary. He doesn’t try to mimic Crowe’s maturity or determined self-sacrifice. Instead, throughout the film, his youthful rage is transformed into defiant idealism, providing one of the only meaningful divergences from the original movie.

Scott has never been able to close the door on the editing room. He’s always dashing back in to remove a growly voiceover, add a unicorn sequence, or shove an additional 45 minutes into an already interminable film. Watching Gladiator II is like seeing a new kind of Director’s Cut – one where the director has simply decided to make an updated, alternative version of the same film with different actors, more fighting, a monkey wearing a diaper, and a lot more eyeliner.

It often feels like a teenager who wants to simultaneously prove himself to his parents and define himself in opposition to them. It shamelessly tries to recreate the first film and lingers far too long on loving shots of Maximus’s crypt and breastplate. It dials up every last bit of drama and is occasionally juvenile in its bid for attention. (Those sharks. Those emperors). But it is also a dazzling spectacle that pulls all the right strings. At nearly two-and-a-half hours, it’s the kind of no-holds-barred crowd-pleaser that they just don’t make anymore, a classic summer blockbuster that puts the chilly Oscar-bait of the latter-year movie season to shame.

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