GLADIATOR SEQUEL | RIDLEY SCOTT / PARAMOUNT

[jye4ever]

Haven't posted on this forum in a long time but ended up here by chance and saw this thread on Gladiator II, which my wife and I saw last night.

We both really disliked it. The lack of historical accuracy, and the extreme creative liberties they took, didn't even bother me. What did bother me was the gratuitous violence and uninteresting action scenes, the really passé depiction of Rome as a place of extreme violence and corruption and misery, and the really un-compelling story. Frankly, it was boring and, by the end, outright exhausting. The film's best moments were when it connected to the first film, which is a pretty damning indictment of this film's inability to stand on its own. That, and they leaned so hard into those references that after a while they ceased to be meaningful.

I don't want to post spoilers, but there were also certain decisions the filmmakers made that made me wonder, "why even bother with that character in the first place?"

As someone else said a few comments above, this film will soon be forgotten--and rightfully so. It's a very poor imitation of the first film, which had a simple but captivating story, memorable characters, and really tight and exciting action sequences.

I agree about the filth, violence and just all around misery it totally made me feel like I was in the NYC subway.

 

[davejames]

Ridley also continues to do a really bad job chopping his 4 hour epics into a 2 1/2 hour movie, as you can tell from the editing that a LOT was cut out of this movie.

And yeah I know the original movie took a lot of liberties with historical accuracy, but this movie never feels connected to the real world at all, and just feels like a complete fantasy at times. Especially when you're watching multiple sharks swimming around in a flooded coliseum. Lol

 

[jye4ever]

I kept waiting for the JAWS theme to kick in then a T-Rex to join the battle.

 

[ZE_501]

"What we do In life echoes in eternity"

What we do at the box office echoes in accounting.

 

[CessnaDriver]

I may see it someday, but not yet...not yet.

 

[Sassafras]

Haven't posted on this forum in a long time but ended up here by chance and saw this thread on Gladiator II, which my wife and I saw last night.

We both really disliked it. The lack of historical accuracy, and the extreme creative liberties they took, didn't even bother me. What did bother me was the gratuitous violence and uninteresting action scenes, the really passé depiction of Rome as a place of extreme violence and corruption and misery, and the really un-compelling story. Frankly, it was boring and, by the end, outright exhausting. The film's best moments were when it connected to the first film, which is a pretty damning indictment of this film's inability to stand on its own. That, and they leaned so hard into those references that after a while they ceased to be meaningful.

I don't want to post spoilers, but there were also certain decisions the filmmakers made that made me wonder, "why even bother with that character in the first place?"

As someone else said a few comments above, this film will soon be forgotten--and rightfully so. It's a very poor imitation of the first film, which had a simple but captivating story, memorable characters, and really tight and exciting action sequences.

So basically if you are in the U.S. the real tragedy is that after a massive dinner we won't be able to watch this at home over a late evening turkey sandwich, because it's brain junk food and that's what you watch over a late night turkey sandwich. Kind of like Meg 2 except the men are all in dresses.

 

[Wor-Gar]

sharks swimming around in a flooded coliseum. Lol

Is that true? They do that in this film?

 

[jye4ever]

Is that true? They do that in this film?

Ummm

Yup

The romans caught sharks and drove them hundreds of miles by horse to the coliseum, true story.

I said….true story!!!

 

[Wor-Gar]

So Gladiator II is also a ... cartoon?

 

[jye4ever]

So Gladiator II is also a ... cartoon?

Cartoon monkies

Those monkies and sharks would never fit in Gladiator 1.

 

[Mandible]

Couldn't pay me to see this one; Ridley is way past his used by date and that lead actor has all the on screen charisma of a tree stump.

 

[davejames]

So Gladiator II is also a ... cartoon?

For the most part it felt pretty grounded and much in the style of the first movie, but you can tell that Ridley felt pressured to up the spectacle and make the gladiator matches a lot bigger and crazier this time.

The irony of course is that the best fights in the movie are just between two dudes with a sword, or with no weapons at all. Or fights that don't even take place in the Coliseum at all.

 

[Remembermyname]

What we do at the box office echoes in accounting.

Very true, everything is about debits and credits.

 

[Alatar]

My review of the film is here.

 

[jye4ever]

My review of the film is here.

But I want it here

 

[jye4ever]

I’ll give it to Ridley for making Gladiator 2 look much bigger than its 103 million budget.

 

[loki2371]

I’ll give it to Ridley for making Gladiator 2 look much bigger than its 103 million budget.

Where'd you read that? That was probably just the craft services budget....

With a price tag of around $250 million to produce it, “Gladiator II” was a big bet by Paramount Pictures to return to the Colosseum

This needs probably like $900mil + to make a profit.

 

[OmarColeccionador]

watched it yesterday .. and Im just gonna say , its a complete disappointment

 

[Alatar]

But I want it here

Oh very well then.

I started this project mainly to share and curate my experience of 4K or otherwise very high quality transfer to Blu-ray on an OLED TV for either films I haven’t watched in many, many years, or that for one reason or another I didn’t get around to watching when they released. However when I go see a newly released movie in the theater I’ll review it.

So here’s my review of Gladiator II.

I’ll preface the review by saying that my wife and I watched the 4K Blu-ray of Gladiator Thursday night in preparation. That was for me to refresh my memory of the story and for her to see it for the first time. And Friday afternoon we went to see Gladiator II on an IMAX screen in a theater equipped with a well calibrated and thundering Dolby Atmos 12 channel speaker system. (We recently discovered that the theater was renovated and refurbished just a few years ago during the pandemic. It’s so nice to have great IMAX theater experience around the corner now.)

After the screening my wife commented that she really appreciated that we watched the first film right beforehand, noting that it helped Gladiator II’s story make the fullest sense to her and it definitely deepened her immersion. I couldn’t agree more.

I only have two very minor spoilers in this review. The first is that it is clearly revealed in a Gladiator II trailer that the protagonist is the son of Maximus and Lucilla. It was hinted in Gladiator that Maximus and Lucilla were lovers at one point. The second is that the theme of Rome as an “idea,” a “hope,” and a “dream” as envisioned Marcus Aurelius gets more development in the sequel.

So on to the film. As much as I enjoy the 2000 film Gladiator (which is a great deal)… and as deserving as Gladiator was for the Oscar for Best Picture that it earned… I actually enjoyed Gladiator II even more.

That’s saying a lot.

This type of film that at first glance may not look like everyone’s cup of tea. It’s a swords and sandals tale belonging to a classical Hollywood genre that celebrates and glorifies violence. In the genre tradition it romanticizes ancient history.

But at a deeper level it also feels like such a handsome, robust, surefooted return to classical Hollywood filmmaking. I would add however that Gladiator II not only honors but also matures the classical Hollywood storytelling aesthetic into our contemporary cultural experience in a pretty darned emotionally satisfying and earnest way.

I think Scott has mirrored something that classical or Old Hollywood’s directors often managed to pull off: despite outward jingoism, it delivers subtler underlying metacontextual criticism of what’s wrong with modern society alongside the more overt celebration of the virtues it does have.

That virtue consists mainly of transcendent and enduring values and principles upon which a civilized society can be stably and durably constructed. In the case of both ancient Rome and the United States we’re then reflecting about the “big ideas” that maintain the ideal of a healthy representative democracy. And we’re inspecting that over against the reality of how it actually works out in practice due to human frailty.

I’ve seen some criticism of the movie’s “on the nose” use of the same beats as the first film for the opening act. This is not due to any laziness or lack of originality on Ridley Scott’s part. I’m sure that showing us “like father, like son” is intended to echo the broader philosophical theme that history tends to repeat itself! And therefore I think the implicit invitation to reflect on similarities between Ancient Rome and what is happening in politics today in the United States is what makes Gladiator II a timely and great film.

I noted in my review of the 4K Blu-ray for Gladiator that Commodus’ plan to give the people increasingly extravagant spectacles at the Colosseum serves as a calculated distraction from his own personal corruption and debauchery, and more broadly the Roman state’s entire governmental system of corruption. In real world history Roman poet Juvenal coined the term “bread and circuses” to describe it. And that theme is amplified in Gladiator II with its young co-emperors. Joseph Quinn (who played the character Eddy Munson in Stranger Things!) and Fred Hechinger are sensational as Emperor Geta and Emperor Caracalla. In real life in the US we’re currently witnessing government move ever more dangerously in that general direction.

All of the acting performances in Gladiator II are excellent. Paul Mescal is sufficiently charismatic to carry the lead role as the son of Maximus and Lucilla. He has some tremendously big shoes to fill. If Mescal conveys something more of an Everyman feel to his character than Russell Crowe’s Maximus, that is probably a good thing for the broader philosophical implications of the story. Both Gladiator films show the human mind’s fascination with things that are grand, showy, flashy, larger than life, etc., to be the problem. For the health of the soul of the polity a sincere return to the values of Marcus Aurelius is what is needed, i.e., a sincere desire to do good, to become better, humbleness, humility (which is poignantly expressed in the final image of the film).

Connie Nielsen shines once again as Lucilla. The years have been very kind to her. 24 years later she looks utterly fabulous. Her performance here is as compelling, or perhaps more so, than the one she gave in Gladiator.

Pedro Pascal is excellent as General Acacius. I won’t spoil about specifics, but it is clear that the existential dilemma his character faces echoes back to another character from Gladiator. And he carries within him a complex set of emotions about that that are subtly expressed.

Alexander Karim as the Colloseum’s doctor, Ravi, mirrors a more sympathetic version of the type of supporting role that As Oliver Reed’s character from Gladiator, Proximo, played. Whereas Proximo represents the sheer wiles to survive in such brutal circumstances, Ravi represents that there might be a higher octave to those primitive survival drive energies that I’d like to think Marcus Aurelius would appreciate and agree with. Karim is very likable in the role.

But without a doubt it is Denzel Washington’s wheeler-dealer Macrinus that steals the show in Gladiator II. His performance is on par with Joaquin Phoenix’s in Gladiator in that respect. Proximo says to Maximus in Gladiator that winning the hearts and minds of the Roman mob is the key to survival. And clearly no one understands that as well as Macrinus, an expert manipulator.

Macrinus offers some food for thought about how power is won in the political arena. He represents a connection from Ancient Rome to the modern day political power system.

A huge difference between the Roman republic and the US is that Rome was in no way founded on the modern ideal that “all men are created equal” and are born with a birthright of equal opportunity under the law to make a success of themselves in society. In real world history Roman senators typically came from the patrician class, i.e., a kind of aristocracy, and thereby they gained access to the political arena. Or in some cases Senators had distinguished themselves in military campaigns as former generals.

Eventually however plebeians or commoners also became Senators. And so did “equestrians” and “novi homines” or “new men,” two social classes formed by those who became highly regarded in various ways in their local region.

What personal qualities or traits for someone not from the aristocracy would it have taken to rise to prominence in Ancient Rome? And with such a cruel and brutal Darwinian social system, is the stability of a republican form of government perpetually at risk from those with Machiavellian skills to divide and conquer? Are there parallels to that core vulnerability in Rome’s republic in our current society? Is it even possible for someone with the ideals of Marcus Aurelius to get elected in our present day world?

Gladiator II does a slightly better job than Gladiator in conveying that Marcus Aurelius was a great man of history. Marcus Aurelius had his personal flaws but he is arguably the closest thing history has ever seen to Plato’s ideal of a philosopher king. The sequel continues the notion proffered in the first film of Rome as an ideal, a kind of “big idea” that Maximus identifies also also as a “hope” and a “dream”: that, as demonstrated by the person of Marcus Aurelius, higher principles and values about a greater good can guide the human soul. That we are not just animals. We can self-govern. We are not doomed to remain slaves to our basest instinctual drive energies.

As a Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius believed that virtue is its own reward. The inner satisfaction of living sincerely in accordance with higher principles is greater than living as swine. And it is certainly greater than living as savage predatory beasts when the world provides no feeding trough. What actually matters in life, that is of real value, is that which is subtle, something that transcends sensory experience, and is not so easy to immediately identify. Not just what impacts us most directly in the moment at a primitive and unreflective level.

And it seems that Gladiator II also shows, as it did with Commodus in the original film, that there seems to be an inevitability that those who rule selfishly to exploit power strictly for their own personal gain are doomed to eventually undo themselves. Though they constantly cast blame upon others, in the final analysis it is they themselves that bring about their own downfall.

 

[jye4ever]

Hold on I have to rub my eyes and read that again but first let me get my bottle.