Gladiator II

 

Twenty-four years ago, Ridley Scott brought his epic sword and sandal film, Gladiator, to the big screen.  After numerous attempts to write a sequel, writers David Scarpa, Peter Craig, and David Franzoni have delivered the newest installment, Gladiator II to the franchise. This week, the story of what happened in Rome following the sixteen years since the death of Maximus.  Scott once again takes the helm as director, and I headed to my local theater to check out the result.

Gladiator II is definitely a companion piece to the original. Yet, you can’t help but be reminded and compare every element to its original. Complete with returning characters, flashbacks in the form of original film scenes, continuing themes and setups.   Here they’ve taken the original and doubled down. Hard. To the point of having twin emperors. The comparisons quickly make it clear that while Gladiator II is solid, it’s by no means Gladiator.

Gladiator II while solid, just isn’t epic.

It’s engaging. It’s entertaining. It’s also generic. We’ve pretty much been there and seen that at this point. Combined with an overall lack of depth to this film’s characters and storyline, Gladiator II is rather bland. If the film were a meal, it needs more salt, oregano, or something. 

The battles are brutal, thrilling with plenty of carnage to spare, but somehow never come across as being high stakes because most of the characters are merely underdeveloped background characters, largely expendable, and unremarkable. With a two-hour twenty-eight-minute running time, you know nothing is going to happen to the main character until the end so there’s very little tension to create drama. 

They don’t establish the identity of the main character early enough in the movie and that also works against the overall story. I knew going in but was left feeling blase towards whether or not he lives or dies because it all felt so inconsequential the way the movie unfolds. Peter Mensah plays Jubartha and without giving away any spoilers the attitude of his character sums up the feeling I had toward the film as a whole.

While the sets, costuming, cinematography, direction, and score are homeruns, some of the CGI work is bad enough it distracts and takes you out of the story. 

Something that very well be a “me” issue this time around is the politics. While politics was at the heart of the first film, this time round it’s the primary focus. I wanted/expected it to be more of a backdrop to a film about a gladiator, but it was front and center and shoved down our throats at every turn.  

Gladiator II looks and feels expensive. It’s visually impactful and exciting. But struggles with the character development and storytelling aspect.  There are sparks of gravitas here and there, just not enough to truly satisfy. 

Maximus once posed the question, “Are you not entertained?” After much consideration, my answer is somewhat. 

Gladiator II gets a 6.5 from me.

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