“Gladiator II” Review

“Violence is the international language.” This line from Gladiator II is accurate not merely because action films with more blood than words play better abroad. Action also happens to be director Ridley Scott’s strength, made clear from the appeal of 2000’s Gladiator and last year’s Napoleon. While Scott does lean into his strength with big battles of brutality, his dramatic staging for these awesome sequences has the eloquence of a melodrama, feeling like a soap opera placed on top of an epic historical tale.

The soap opera angle feels most prominent with the central hero of Lucius (Paul Mescal), the son of Maximus from the previous film. Don’t worry, you won’t need to see the previous film to realize this, as Gladiator is recapped in the opening and has flashbacks strewn throughout. Lucius had left Rome to be safe, but Rome’s expansion has placed him in the same spot as his father. He now has to fight for his right to freedom in the Colosseum, battling everything from monkeys to rhinos. His ultimate goal is to kill the Roman general, Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), who killed Lucius’s wife in battle. But Marcus also happens to be the current husband of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the wife of Maximus and son of Lucius. She wants to be reunited with her son but also keep Marcus alive to stage an insurrection against the egotistical Emperor duo of Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger).

The film proceeds with an almost tedious rhythm of blistering fights and exposition-heavy passages. Marcus and Lucilla spend little time displaying their affection and focus almost entirely on amassing their troops for the inevitable overthrowing of Rome. That might be the most important business, but it’s hard to feel Lucilla’s heartbreak when she watches her husband fight her son in the ring. Meanwhile, Paul Mescal marches forward with his muscular build, remaining stoic enough to keep his eyes on the prize of Marcus’s head. He has moments of grief, but they’re relegated to watching, crying out for his friends and family being gutted by Rome’s cruelty. More thought seems to have been put into Mescal’s matches than anything interesting for him to say in between his bloody performances. Maximus’s legacy is also highlighted as a legend and an inspiration more through his left-behind armor and jewelry than anything deeper beyond banal speeches of honor.

But then there’s Denzel Washington coming into the film as gladiator groomer Macrinus. What a breath of fresh air Denzel is in a dismal movie where nearly every character takes this historical epic so seriously it’s maddeningly monotonous, to the point that the towering environment has more character. Macrinus is easily the most interesting character because he manipulates everybody around him with the desire to attain Rome’s throne. He walks into every room acting as though he owns it, knowing it only takes a few deals and discussions to do so. His charisma and intimidation is so grand that I wanted to follow his rise to power more closely than whether or not Lucius would decapitate someone in the gladiator ring (spoiler: he does). Whenever Denzel is on screen, it’s like a ray of sunshine bleeding in through the sword-and-sandal grime, where Mescal and Pascal are so drowned in their violence that their attempts at more human emotions beyond stoic behavior come off awkward.

Gladiator II has some bloody action but could use more charisma instead of getting lost in its historical theatrics. While the gruesome displays on the battlefield and the Colosseum bring all the bone-crunching and blood-gushing displays, they feel empty when the dialogue is so bland and boring, to the point where Harry Gregson-Williams’s score has more personality. The saving grace is Denzel Washington, the way he saunters into rooms, kisses his way through deals and bears his grinning teeth like a predator about to devour his prey. The sparse usage of this stellar performance is presented like a tease of a better film, where all the hacking and slashing would hold more than a gallon of blood. If you’re coming to Gladiator II for the simplistic desire of vicious violence, you’ll certainly get that, but you’ll have to sit through long stretches of melodrama where the characters are less impressive than the costumes and sets placed upon them.