Film Review of the Week

Action

Gladiator II (15)

Review: For me, the defining moment of Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning 2000 sword and sandals epic Gladiator occurs before Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe) steps inside the Colosseum to challenge the iron-fisted rule of Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). The fallen Roman general turned slave decapitates one helmeted opponent and turns on the bloodthirsty crowd, berating them, “Are you not entertained?” is defiant words, beautifully scripted by David Franzoni, John Logan and William Nicholson, echoed in my ears throughout the laboured two and a half hours of Scott’s belated sequel, set 16 years after Maximus’ death in the gladiatorial ring.

I was mildly entertained by Gladiator II but Scott’s bombastic return to the swaggering machismo of Ancient Rome defiles lustrous memories of the original film and the unflattering comparisons between present and past are painfully pronounced by flashback recaps to events in 184 AD. Scott should have won the Academy Award for his direction of the first film and his ability to orchestrate large-scale battle sequences is on thrilling display here too, opening with the storming of coastal battlements by the Roman fleet. However, storytelling and characterisation are weak, evidenced by gaping plot holes such as the Colosseum being flooded with man-eating sharks for one bruising skirmish on water that neglects to explain how the fish are safely transported from a distant coast or kept alive long enough to tear chunks out of the unfortunate souls that fall overboard.

Paul Mescal looks physically capable of toppling empires but he doesn’t possess the same snarling intensity as Crowe and it’s hard to believe his voice carries to the back of vast crowds when he delivers impassioned calls to arms against the echelons of power. Denzel Washington hungrily chews scenery as a vengeful former slave, who intends to exercise power by reshaping the empire in his image. His Machiavellian designs are conceived and executed in plain sight. The fact he remains undetected until the film’s final stretch requires another Herculean suspension of disbelief.

Maximus’s exiled son Lucius Verus (Mescal) is spirited away from Rome as a boy by his mother Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) to escape the capital’s treachery. Happily settled into a new home in 200AD Numidia on the North African coast with wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen), Lucius is one of the few survivors of a military onslaught led by Roman General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) in the names of tyrannical Emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). Lucius is enslaved and sold to Macrinus (Washington), who is plotting to overthrow the emperors and outflank Senators Thraex (Tim McInnerny) and Gracchus (Derek Jacobi). The returning prince will be his instrument of vengeance against a crumbling empire.

Gladiator II abides by one mantra: “Violence is the universal language.” Scott leaves no blood-spattered stone unturned to deliver a grandiose, widescreen spectacle that demands to be seen in a cinema and not at home. Production design, costumes and other technical credits are top notch but the emotional heart beneath the shiny armour beats faintly.