Ridley Scott’s 2000 sword-and-sandal epic “Gladiator” closed on a memorable shot that grew to become an indelible picture related to the movie: Russell Crowe’s hand, callused and battle-worn, softly caressing strands of wheat, as his character Maximus makes his manner dwelling to some place within the afterlife. Scott references this peaceable picture within the opening of his sequel, “Gladiator II.” Tough, thick palms, toughened by farming and preventing, plunge right into a sack of harvested grain, feeling the fruits of their labor.
These two comparable pictures turn out to be the thesis of this devoted sequel. It’s the similar film, barely tweaked and continually referencing and reminding you of the unique, delivering what you already cherished about “Gladiator”: energy and honor, bread and circuses, blood and guts.
The palms that open “Gladiator II” belong to Lucius (Paul Mescal), the son of Maximus and Lucilla (Connie Nielsen). As soon as the crown prince of Rome, he was compelled to flee at age 12 for his security, and is now a humble farmer in Numidia, North Africa. He and his spouse (Yuval Gonen) stay an idyllic lifetime of home bliss, interrupted by Roman incursions. It’s after one such incursion, led by Gen. Acacius (Pedro Pascal), that Lucius returns to his dwelling metropolis, now an enslaved gladiator and a grieving widower, simply as his father was.
Lucius has a knack for showmanship, with strikes he stole from Maximus, however he’s extra feral, going tooth-to-tooth with a nasty baboon in a podunk ring exterior the town. His ferociousness catches the attention of gladiator agent Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a lot in the identical manner Maximus caught the attention of Proximo (Oliver Reed), and Macrinus goes to make Lucius a star.
This can be a movie of doubles, repeated characters, twin identities and twice the violence within the Colosseum. Twin emperors rule Rome in an uneasy brotherly alliance. You preferred one creepy Joaquin Phoenix within the first film? How about two? Faces painted white, surrounded by concubines of each gender, Emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) are completely taken with the barbarian who can recite Virgil whereas coated in one other man’s blood, after Macrinus presents Lucius in a personal showcase. He turns into the toast of the Colosseum, main the opposite gladiators to victory towards rhinos, sharks and all method of human and animal beast.
Lucius is hellbent on revenge towards Acacius, whereas his mom Lucilla (Nielsen, returning) is determined to avoid wasting her son from the Colosseum. Elsewhere, Washington’s Macrinus has his personal designs on energy in Rome. Therein lies the Achilles’ heel of “Gladiator II” — there is just too a lot plot to actually care about these characters.
As a result of there’s a lot happening, with a number of double-crosses, backstabbings, front-stabbings, politicking (and likewise the sharks), what “Gladiator II” is missing from its forebear is refined storytelling, deep character work and nuanced messaging. The brand new movie’s story (by David Scarpa and Peter Craig) falls a bit flat as a result of it tells you what it’s about proper on the floor.
Paul Mescal, left, and Pedro Pascal within the film “Gladiator II”.
(Aidan Monaghan)
If “Gladiator” was Scott’s thinly veiled film about Hollywood, an allegory in regards to the enterprise of making leisure for a fickle crowd and a patron who lazily offers thumbs up and down from on excessive, then “Gladiator II” is his not-so-thinly-veiled “democracy movie” (or “politics” as Washington flamboyantly spits). The subtext is textual content as Lucius delivers a number of speeches about “the dream of Rome” that he discovered about on the knee of his grandfather, Marcus Aurelius.
Although the script falters, the spectacle doesn’t and “Gladiator II” is the best-looking Scott movie in years. Shiny and bloody, sandblasted and sunworn, it has the visible crispness of the primary and doesn’t bear the unusual desaturated look of among the director’s current work. The afterlife visions that Lucius experiences are as aesthetically distinct as those within the authentic movie, however rendered in high-contrast black and white, setting them aside.
The forged is uniformly wonderful, together with the peacocking Washington, chewing the surroundings, and the soulful Mescal, wanting just like the statue of David come to life in fierce, brutal type. Mescal has a component of unpredictable wildness, and when it’s allowed to return out it’s transfixing, although he’s largely stored on a leash, save for just a few memorable scenes. Nielsen is radiant as Lucilla, 25 years after she first performed the position, and achieves a little bit of redemption for the character. Quinn and Hechinger revel within the ickiness of their expensive leaders.
“Gladiator II” maps carefully onto the unique movie’s construction and magnificence, so there’s not a lot about it that’s shocking or sudden. The movie itself is a son, constructed from the identical DNA in the identical picture. It’s the solely “Gladiator” sequel that would presumably exist and precisely what you anticipate, for higher or for worse. Are you not entertained?
‘Gladiator II’
Rated: R, for sturdy bloody violence
Operating time: 2 hours, 28 minutes
Taking part in: In huge launch Friday, Nov. 22