In the notes that I gave to our vendor partner after screening Gladiator II, I started with “This is the kind of movie that is made for premium formats”. I stand by that, but that is not all there is to that statement.
It’s been a quarter-century since Ridley Scott unleashed the first film upon the world and took it by storm. The only two cast members to return here are Connie Neilsen and Derek Jacobi (for obvious reasons… seriously, have you not seen Gladiator?) as we fast forward nineteen in-story years as a young man named Hanno (Paul Mescal) lives in a village that is overrun by the Roman Empire, led by General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal). Losing his wife in the battle, taken, and sold into being a gladiator under the ownership of Macrinus (Denzel Washington), he is taken to Rome to compete in the games led by twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). Once he is there, secrets are revealed, ulterior motives come to the forefront, and the battle for power and survival is on as cracks in the Roman Empire widen.
Did we see this in a premium format? We did, as our screening was in IMAX (although I didn’t really notice any IMAX-specific sequences, but that may be a good thing). Beyond that, I don’t really have much to say positive here. The visuals are good (I’ve seen better CGI, but it still feels epic in its presentation), the acting is passable for the type of film that this is, but the script just feels like a mess. Scott is not necessarily known for editing in a way that feels linear, and this is on full display here. In a film like The Last Duel (which I also did not really enjoy), I could forgive that since the whole story tells itself three times from three different points of view, but here, there is a lot of times where I went “why didn’t this happen earlier”. Even a piece of the plot that is revealed in the trailer (I won’t spoil it if you haven’t seen the trailer itself) doesn’t present itself until almost the halfway point, which is right around the same point where a sequence made me scratch my head even further on its level of absurd. How absurd, you ask? So glad you did; once the screening was over, Alex made sure to give it a literal interpretation that said it to perfection. You’ll understand when you get there; trust me.
Really the best part of this film for me that I have been in on since the trailers is Washington himself. In a story that is surrounded by accents from what we believe could be used in that section of the world at that time, Denzel Washington is just Denzel Washington in period-we-assume costumes. In my research, I discovered that his reasoning was due to not wanting to insult any form of culture that could or could not have been for Macrinus, but the odd thing is here that it actually works. With the line that goes something like “what language is native to you… I speak them all,” it seems to be the way to tell the audience that this is how we are rolling, so forgive and get right with it.
Gladiator II is definitely one of those “be careful what you wish for…” kind of films. It will no doubt make its money over the holiday season, but I don’t see this one being remembered in history the way the Russell Crowe film did. It’s just kind of… there.
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