Gladiator 2 Movie Review

Ridley Scott directs a damn good sequel to masterpiece film that won best picture 4 out of 5 stars

Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people. Ridley Scott returns to the world of his best picture winner delivering phenomenal battle scenes, great intimate one on one scenes that make you care about the characters new and returning from the original that elevate the film. The performances from the cast across the board are great I bought into each of the characters and the journeys they were going on thanks to the cast playing them which is critical for any movie but especially an epic like this. Technically this film is well done for the most part the cinematography, production design, costumes, the score, and the combo of CGI and practical effects are executed well except for the monkey scene that felt rushed.

Ridley Scott continues to amaze me being 87 years old directing films like he is in his 40s he proves if he has good scripts he can make a good movie like Gladiator 2, The Last Duel, and Napoleon recently in my opinion he shows that he is one of the best at directing battle scenes both the large scale army battles along with the sword and hand to hand combat scenes are thrilling to watch. The opening battle sequence that introduces Paul Mescal as Lucius and Pedro Pascal as General Acacius does so much to set up the rest of the film story wise to make you think the Pascal character is going to be a villain but shows his reluctance in what he is doing which sets up how this film will pivot from the first film which is great. The choreography of this sequence is so well done so well edited you know where you are always which is so important when so many other films like ones directed by Michael Bay for example you don’t what the hell is going on which just bores me to tears. Scott does as good of a job with the intimate one on one scenes between the actors and getting great performances from them that really making you care about these characters so when things go down you are invested.

Paul Mescal as Lucius is fantastic in this film he shows a lot of range going from being tender and loving with his wife to anger, grief, and rage when she is killed and when he is reunited with his mother Lucilla to charming banter back and forth with Ravi who is the doctor for the gladiators to him embracing his birthright as the air to the throne of Rome is riveting to watch as a viewer. Denzel Washington is so wonderfully entertaining as this manipulative gladiator trainer who is corrupt and lusts for power it absolutely channels Alonzo Harris from Training Day it works so well and gives the film a damn good villain to root against. Joesph Quinn and Fredd Hechinger as the evil twin emperors are solid in the film but this is one of the areas that keep the film from reaching the heights of the first film it’s hard because Joaquin Phoenix as Commodious is one of the all time great villains in movies he has so many layers and levels to him and the magic he had with Russell Crowe as Maximas on screen was amazing so while I think they did a good job there characters could have been given more layers in the script. Pedro Pascal is so great in the film he subverts your expectations to make you think he will be a villain in the film but then pivots in such a great way when he talks to Lucilla when he gets back it makes reconsider who is character is that he wants to free Rome from the cruelty of these dictatorial emperors so no more of his men will be sacrificed for their own amusement so when his character arc concludes it’s as a noble man which works so well for him.

The Script for the film is good but could have been great I mentioned how the emperors could have been given more layers I also think Pascal could have been given just a little more to make his character arc even more impactful. I have seen some people say that Maximus being Lucius father is retcon and doesn’t work but I disagree because if watch when Lucilla and Maximus first meet in the first movie they clearly had a romantic history and knowing her history of being married off when she was young to an old senator it absolutely makes sense to me that she would have her son with Maximus then he went on to marry his wife around the same time when their romance couldn’t work out because of circumstances so it works so well for me it felt organic and gives this film emotional weight unlike something like Rey being Palpatine’s granddaughter in the rise of Skywalker which is so astoundingly dumb. I love the parallels of Rome to us today how corruption sadly is timeless because when humas desire power they will be corrupted by it which is so relevant to today.

I want to talk about the chimpanzee scene because some people think it looks horrible while I don’t think it look amazing I don’t think it looks that bad people made it seem like Corey Stoll in ant man and the wasp 3 who looked like the studio gave this to the VFX team a week before the movie was to be finished that looked like an abomination but the chimpanzee scene looks fine could have been better sure I cant disagree with people on that to a certain extent. I love the score of this film I love how the composer Harry Gregson-Williams uses key themes from Hans Zimmer in the first film but also creates new ones to make it his own which helps put back into the world of Gladiator and makes the emotional moments resonate and the battle scenes even more thrilling.

Final thoughts on this film is I really liked this movie while it doesn’t reach the levels of the masterpiece of the first film which is in my top 5 movies of all time it’s like the Star trek 3 the search for Spock not as good as Wrath of Khan but a damn good movie in its own right I will give film a 4 out of 5 do go see it when you get a chance.