Review: Gladiator II – “a solid storyline that pulls together a greater element of courtly intrigue than the first film”

Paul Mescal plays Lucius in Gladiator II from Paramount Pictures.

Cutting to the chase, Gladiator II isn’t as good as Gladiator, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Bear with me.

Here we have Ridley Scott, returning to Rome, 24 years after Russell Crowe’s Maximus kicked plentiful ass in The Colosseum on his way to ultimately gaining his vengeance, in this life just ahead of heading to the next. The film was actually slated to be developed quite soon after the first instalment, but one thing after another intervened, and just like these Gladiators’ journeys to Rome, the path became twisty.

To the film itself. To start we join Paul Mescal as “Hanno” and his wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen) in the African kingdom of Numidia, preparing to defend against a naval attack led by Pedro Pascal’s General Acacius. After a spirited battle, Hanno ends up captured and converted into a gladiator, where he must catch the eye in various bouts to wind his way to Rome and his chance at vengeance. So far, so 2000. My spoilers end there.

The main talking point in this film has been the casting, but what do we want from a Gladiator film? We want Russell Crowe, “Are you not entertained?”, and “My name is Maximus etc”, right? Well, yes, but Scott would have endured brickbats from another direction if he’d literally given us the same film.

What we do have is a solid storyline that pulls together a greater element of courtly intrigue than the first, and some chewy stuff for the supporting cast to do. We of course had titans in the first film – Crowe’s juggernaut Maximus perfectly counterbalanced by Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus. We had Richard Harris and Oliver Reed! Here we have perfectly decent turns from a cast representing a Rome falling into decadent ruin.

Paul Mescal himself perhaps seems an odd choice for the central role, and much of the criticism for the film comes down to this. He’s not a prime Russell Crowe and perhaps doesn’t hold the frame as well as that leviathan did, but he is a stellar actor, perfectly up to the physical stuff and can skillfully conceal inner rage with that lightly unhinged shyness that we know from Normal People and All of Us Strangers. Let’s give the guy a break here. It’s quite something to note his voice grows in power along with the running time.

Paul Mescal plays Lucius and Pedro Pascal plays Marcus Acacius in Gladiator II from Paramount Pictures.

There are welcome reprises from Connie Nielsen as Commodus’ sister Lucilla, and Derek Jacobi as Senator Gracchus. We also have Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger, playing the Roman equivalents of Kendall and Roman Roy as the deranged twin emperors Geta and Caracalla. One firm upgrade, as much as there is a lot to love for the late Oliver Reed in the first film, is Denzel Washington as Machiavellian gladiator CEO Macrinus – who has FAR more to do in this film. Despite an occasionally jarring Harlem accent creeping into 196AD, Washington has huge fun with the role. Hat tip also to Pedro Pascal as Acacius, adroitly portraying a conflicted soldier twisting in this decadent cesspit of a Roman capital.

All the mixture mashes together agreeably as the film goes on, if the viewer can give a pass to some of the ludicrousness. This mainly involves the Colosseum set-piece battles, which must have surely been spitballed over an evening on various edibles. That said, they do link into the “excesses of the last days of Rome” vibe going on here, so there is that. Caligula (1979) got made, after all, and look at what was in that. My other markdown really was the very final large-scale scene, which seemed somewhat contrived and almost 90’s rom-commy in construction. The moment after that though, is delicate and gorgeous.

Around all this floats the leather-armoured ghost of Maximus. There are several lovely callbacks to that first film, and Crowe, who was a producer on this film, says that extensive research went into Roman conceptions of the afterlife, which are honoured here. There is also One Big Link to the first film – easily found should you wish to search for it, but it’s not my duty to spill it here.

I enjoyed it, and don’t care if the best lines were repeats from the first film. There is genuine craft to be found in Gladiator II, and no one does big-scale cinema like Ridley.