Gladiator II | 2024
Paul Mescal plays Lucius in Gladiator II from Paramount Pictures.
Even in a sea of nostalgia-driven legacy sequels, Ridley Scott's 2000 Oscar winner, Gladiator, feels like a strange candidate for the sequel treatment 24 years later. With its story complete and its protagonist dead, there seemed little point in revisiting this world.
I've learned, however, not to underestimate Ridley Scott, so I went in with an open mind. Unfortunately, I'm still not entirely sure what the point of all this was, because as good as Paul Mescal is, there remains a giant, gladiator-sized hole in the film where Russell Crowe's Maximus once stood.
Our husband to a murdered wife seeking vengeance this time is Lucius Verus Aurelius (Mescal), son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), grandson of Marcus Aurelius, and (it is revealed) the son of Maximus Decimus Meridius. Having been spirited away after the death of Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus to protect him from forces seeking to usurp the throne, Lucius grows up in Africa, takes a wife, and leads an army against the invading Roman Empire. His army is decimated, and he is taken into slavery where he becomes a gladiator under the tutelage of Macrinus (Denzel Washington), an ambitious trainer with his eye on seeding chaos in the empire in order to seize power for himself.
Gladiator II has a lot more moving parts than its predecessor, often to its detriment. Whereas Gladiator was a more streamlined narrative, Gladiator II focuses on three separate stories. There's the Lucius' story, Macrinus' political machinations, and a rebellion against the twin emperors, Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) being led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal), a war hero and focus of Lucius' quest for revenge against Rome, who also happens to be married to his mother, Lucilla (Connie Nielson). As a result, the film often feels overstuffed.
It's a shame because Denzel Washington is giving it is all as Macrinus, a flamboyant and conniving character that's one of the most fun roles he's ever played. He's easily the most interesting part of the film, but he also represents one of its biggest shortcomings. It is revealed that his character was once a slave belonging to Marcus Aurelius, a figure for which both Gladiator films hold great reverence. It was that experience that motivated Macrinus to seek to bring down the empire. It almost seems as if the film is beginning to reach for a criticism of the idea of the "great man," a flawless hero that the original Maximus represented. If our idols are revealed to be the flawed people that they are, how do the people who look to them for direction react? Macrinus represents those who seek to tear it all down, while Lucius essentially represents those who seek to preserve the system in pursuit of an unrealized and likely unattainable dream.
It's liberalism in a nutshell, essentially - keep doing the same thing but everything will be ok as long as the right autocrat is in charge. As a result, the film feels messy and unfocused; a narrative content to live in the past, in search of a hero who never really rises. Not even the film's epic battle sequences can make up for its lack of a strong core. Just like the Roman Empire it depicts, there are too many cooks in the kitchen and too many would-be emperors vying for the hearts of the people and the audience, leaving us only somewhat entertained, but mostly empty.
