In ‘Gladiator II,’ spectacle comes first

The story goes that when the producers for the first “Gladiator” film (2000) pitched the concept to director Ridley Scott, in lieu of giving him a script, they showed him a painting. It was the French painter Jean-Léon Gérôme’s 1872 work “Pollice Verso,” which means “with a turned thumb” in Latin. In it, Gérôme depicts a gladiator standing triumphant in the Colosseum, his sandal-boot upon the neck of a defeated opponent, as spectators gesture at him with a vicious “thumbs down,” indicating that he should execute the man. Scott was entranced by this painting, filled as it was with the extravagant bloodiness and brutality of Rome, and immediately signed up to do the film—despite knowing nothing about the actual story.

Much of this same energy, a focus on cinematic spectacle and an ultimately secondary consideration for narrative, still lives in the sequel “Gladiator II.”

Set 16 years after the events of the first film, “Gladiator II” shows us a Rome under the tyrannical rule of twin emperors, Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger), who have launched a vicious campaign of expansion. Paul Mescal plays Lucius Verus Aurelius, the grandson of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose death kicked off the events of the previous film. Having been sent away for his own protection when he was a child, he eventually took up the identity of “Hanno” and lives incognito in the North African province of Numidia. When the Roman general Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) conquers Numidia, Lucius is captured, enslaved and made to fight as a gladiator. Forced to return to his former home in chains, Lucius swears vengeance on Acacius and the whole of Rome.

It is a setup worthy of a historical epic, though it echoes the first film’s plot to a perhaps unnecessary degree. Indeed, the writing of “Gladiator II” can leave a bit to be desired. Even at a runtime of nearly two-and-a-half hours, motivations and arcs feel surprisingly muddy, especially for the lead character Lucius. There is one particular character turn, at the end of the second act, when Lucius has a change of heart about his goals that seems to come out of nowhere. The film could benefit from an extended cut; it can sometimes feel like there are missing scenes which would help fill in some of the gaps.

Despite the subpar writing (the first “Gladiator,” though a Best Picture winner, wasn’t the best-written work either in spite of moments of great dialogue), “Gladiator II” remains a handsomely mounted effort. Every other aspect of the production is in great form. A large part of Scott’s motivation to do a sequel to “Gladiator” was so that he could put on the screen ideas he had for the original that were impractical or even impossible to do in 2000. Visual spectacle is the name of the game here, with impressive physical stunts and special effects. Baboons are released to test the mettle of fresh gladiators, a rhinoceros-riding champion clashes with Lucius, and—in one marquee sequence—the Colosseum is flooded with water for a mock naval battle, complete with sharks.

Scott has also, perhaps unintentionally, amped up the camp factor in the sequel. It is largely to the film’s benefit and, indeed, in many ways reflects the extravagance of the Roman Empire.

The actors, thankfully, feel calibrated toward this same goal. The twin emperors, Geta and Caracalla, though recalling the legendary performance by Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus in the original, are properly crazed in a way that the former emperor never was. Geta, the more calculating and nefarious of the two, is played brilliantly by Joseph Quinn, fresh off his lauded performance in “Stranger Things.” Fred Hechinger’s deranged Caracalla, however, is a real standout. Beset with an illness that has damaged his brain, Caracalla appoints his pet monkey to government positions and revels in the gladiatorial bloodsport. The pair’s dynamic, where one less-crazed emperor attempts to rein in the other more-crazed emperor, is compelling to watch.

The real standout is Denzel Washington as Macrinus, based on the historical figure Marcus Opellius Macrinus, one of the first rulers of Rome to be from Africa. In the film, he is portrayed as a former slave turned oligarch who used to serve under Marcus Aurelius. He purchases Lucius to fight for him in the Colosseum and politicks throughout the film to attain more power. Macrinus is intelligent and conniving as well as endlessly charismatic. Washington plays Macrinus as quite camp, but there is a deathly seriousness in the oligarchic power plays that he commits throughout the film. It is a marvelous performance.

Unfortunately, Mescal’s performance as Lucius does not match up to Russell Crowe’s original performance as Maximus. The film keeps highlighting their similarities—and Mescal is made to look more and more like the original gladiator as the film goes on, even taking up Maximus’ arms and armor—but Crowe had an effortless gravitas and heroic disposition that made the character feel larger-than-life. Mescal is a more subdued actor. He thrives in the quieter moments, like in the frequent conversations Lucius has with Ravi (Alexander Karim), the doctor who takes care of the gladiators, where there is an easy chemistry between the two actors. It is when the moment calls for Lucius to be an epic hero that Mescal falls short of the heights that Crowe managed to climb.

“Gladiator II” is a muscular movie, ultimately unburdened by some of its weaker points. The fact that it is paced so well says a lot about what Scott’s priorities were for this film: spectacle, immersion, pure feeling. How well one enjoys “Gladiator II” depends on the same paradigm: If you can get past some of its failings, you will find a feast for the senses, set in a slightly exaggerated version of the Roman Empire. If you watch it on the biggest screen you can, surrounded by all the technical brilliance of screen and sound that Scott’s production team poured into the movie, it can be hard not to walk out feeling entertained.