The Paw Print

Tristan Solomon, Staff Writer
The word to describe Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II is “unnecessary”. Ridley Scott’s 2000 Gladiator follows a powerful Roman general named Maximus (Russell Crowe), who is betrayed by the emperor’s son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). Commodus murders his family and forces him into slavery as a gladiator. Seeking revenge, Maximus climbs the ranks in the arena, confronting and killing Commodus for the justice of his loved ones. 24 years later, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II maintains a similar plot. It follows Lucius (Paul Mescal), who is enslaved and forced to become a gladiator in the Colosseum. Lucius fights to end the current emperors’ tyranny and restore Rome to its glory days. Plotwise, it feels like an overly close imitation of the original. Furthermore, nearly every performance is overshadowed by its predecessor. Paul Mescal plays the protagonist, Lucius, yet fails to take control of the film due to a stunted script in which he is less leader and more generic strong gladiator. This prevents the audience from being as invested in his character as with Russell Crowe’s Maximus from the original film. Lucius is thrown at the audience and we aren’t given a particular reason to care about him until over an hour in, when his relationship to Maximus is revealed. The current emperors in this movie (Geta and Caracalla), though portrayed well by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger, are also problematic. While we are informed of how corrupt and tyrannical they are, their behaviors are discussed but never shown. The film expects the audience to hate them without question and root for the hero similarly. That being said, Denzel Washington’s character, Macrinus, a former slave-turned-gladiator-trainer, is quite entertaining and steals the show. Macrinus is a much more threatening antagonist than the emperors. His plan is to gain social influence through the strength and popularity of his gladiators, gain the trust of the emperors, and then overthrow them and take Rome for himself. In theory this is a good plan; however, within the movie, its execution feels very rushed. Most of the action takes place in the last 20-30 minutes of the film, with an abrupt ending that leaves the audience unsatisfied. In short, this is an exciting movie with great action, visual effects, and costume and set design that functions well as a blockbuster. However, it lacks the character development and pacing to make it a successful and important sequel to the original Gladiator movie. I would not recommend watching Gladiator II unless you want to be let down.
3/5 stars