NEW YORK (OSV News) – Nearly a quarter-century after its predecessor premiered, “Gladiator II” (Paramount) takes moviegoers back into the ancient arena. The result is a spectacular but sterile historical epic whose unsparing depiction of life-or-death combat greatly circumscribes its appropriate audience.
Screenwriter David Scarpa’s script intertwines the fates of Hanno (Paul Mescal), a Numidian prisoner of war-turned-gladiator, Macrinus (Denzel Washington), the Roman mover and shaker to whose stable of fighters he belongs, and Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), the celebrated general who conquered Hanno’s city. They’re all caught up in the political turmoil roiling Rome.
With two decadent brothers, Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger), ruling the city and its empire, both Macrinus and Marcus Acacius are scheming to seize power. As the politically dispossessed daughter of the much-lamented former emperor, Marcus Aurelius, Acacius’ wife, Lucilla (Connie Nielson), is an important player in her husband’s conspiracy.
As the rival plotters jockey for position and the effete siblings prove ever more unsuitable for the throne, questions emerge about Hanno’s true identity. This strand of the story provides the tie-in with the original and the legacy of its heroic protagonist, Maximus (Russell Crowe, seen briefly in a flashback).
In following up on his Academy Award-winning 2000 hit, returning director Ridley Scott delivers some eye-popping visuals. Yet, despite an all-in performance from Washington and the intermittent presence of the venerable Derek Jacobi playing a senator, the human dimension is lacking.
The characters seem more like chess pieces being moved on a board than fully developed individuals. And Scarpa fails to lay the groundwork for the two key relationships in Hanno’s life in which viewers are meant to feel emotionally invested.
The story is also riddled with historical improbabilities and anachronistic rhetoric. The former primarily hinge on the amount of social mobility — or lack of it — available to a figure like Macrinus. The latter crops up in speeches lauding universal freedom, not a concept given much currency in the ancient world where liberty was generally a prerogative of the privileged.
The principal problem with this sequel, however, is the excessive bloodletting with which viewers are confronted at intervals. While the Coliseum was certainly no place for the fainthearted, there are subtler ways to convey its horrors than with gruesome images of impalement and decapitation.
The film contains much graphic gory violence, mature references, including to incest, venereal disease and homosexuality, and a couple of crass terms. The OSV News classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
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