'Gladiator II' review: Ridley Scott grapples with modern masculinity in ancient Rome
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Just last year, the internet was mightily bemused by the discovery that many men are low-key obsessed with the Roman Empire. Decades after Gladiator swept the Oscars, Ridley Scott is back with the highly anticipated Gladiator II, proving there's no historical fixation quite like it. This long-awaited sequel is an extraordinary creation, made up of outrageous action sequences inspired by ancient history, emotional storytelling underpinned by modern ideals of masculinity, and yet joltingly problematic gender norms. But are you not entertained?
Gladiator II stars Paul Mescal as Maximus 2.0.
Pedro Pascal and Paul Mescal face off in "Gladiator II." Credit: Paramount Pictures
Reteaming with Napoleon and All The Money In the World scribe David Scarpa, Scott lays down a story of Lucius Verus, son of Lucilla, who was daughter, then sister, to two successive Roman emperors. In the first film. Lucius was a boy who idealized the revolutionary gladiator Maximus (Russell Crowe). In the sequel, he's all grown up and played by Paul Mescal, a contemporary figure of non-toxic masculinity.
Like Maximus before him, Lucius is a disillusioned citizen of Rome who's been tossed in the Colosseum as meat for the grinder that is the empire's entertainment. In Gladiator II, he will not only face off against trained warriors — including a decorated Roman general played by The Last of Us' Pedro Pascal — but also an array of wild animals, like a rampaging baboon, a charging rhinoceros, and thrashing sharks. Believe it or not, many of these seemingly ludicrous moments are actually cherry-picked from Rome's heyday. And under Scott's eye for spectacle, these scenes are freshly shocking and, yes, very damn exciting.
Lucius fights not only to survive, but — also like Maximus — to avenge his wife, who was slain by the command of a cruel emperor, and to bring about "the dream of Rome," meaning an empire not run by reckless, mercurial tyrants. Long dead is Gladiator's villain (played by a squalling Joaquin Phoenix), and in his place are a pair of red-haired, pasty-skinned twins, Emperor Geta (Stranger Things' Joseph Quinn) and Emperor Caracalla (Thelma's Fred Hechinger). Though the framework of this plotline is very similar to the 2000 box office hit that preceded it, Gladiator II brings a fresh vulnerability to its titular hero.
Mescal has packed on added brawn for the role of a warrior, but the boyish vulnerability radiant in his critically heralded performances in the indie dramas Aftersun and All of Us Strangers shines through. He doesn't just put on a scowl and seek bloody vengeance on those who killed his beloved wife (May Calamawy). He also talks about his feelings to his mother (a returning Connie Nielsen). And even as he battles, he carries with him not just a sword but a woeful expression that violence is his only resort. There's a tragedy even in victory, in part because it's been 20 years since Maximus fought for Rome to be freed, and change has not come, a heavy burden that Mescal carries with every step.
Ridley makes femininity a failing in Gladiator II.
Connie Nielsen plays Lucilla and Joseph Quinn plays Emperor Geta in "Gladiator II." Credit: Paramount Pictures
Throughout his long and storied career, Scott has delivered movies that are not only critically praised and iconic, but also engaging in terms of gender politics. Sure, on the surface 1979's Alien was Jaws in space. But beneath the creature-feature creepiness, Scott fostered a narrative about the horrors of losing your bodily autonomy that rings all the more horrifying since Roe v. Wade's been overturned. Then in 1991, Thelma & Louise offered a free-wheeling tale of female friendship, liberation, and vengeance for an attempted rape. The hardships of female soldiers in the U.S. military was the center of 1997's G.I. Jane. And most recently in 2021, Scott delivered the double whammy of the scorching rape culture historical drama The Last Duel and the deliciously trashy exploration of a wife's ruthless revenge in House of Gucci. Where does Gladiator II fit into all this?
Well, on the other side of the gender politics divide, Scott has also explored male egotism, blind ambition, and the paternal urge to protect in warrior-focused films like Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Robin Hood, The Last Duel, and last year's Napoleon. Here is where Gladiator II fits, building on Scott's keen understanding of the slippery man's world where politics meets corruption and principles meet violence. However, where some elements of Gladiator II build on the original film, others are awkward reworkings, and still others feel like clumsy ideas undeserving of screen time in 2024.
This is a story of men, men, men, from the gladiators to the emperors to the generals to the senators to the conniving arms dealer Macrinus (Denzel Washington in top form), who plays many of these figures like pawns on a chess board. Women in Gladiator II exist to be cut down (or fridged, to pull from comic book conventions) or suffer in strong-jawed steadiness. Lucilla is not exactly reduced to a damsel in distress, as there's a subplot has her plotting a coup against the sniveling emperor twins. However, her role in the film is chiefly as the mother who disappointed her son, so many of her scenes are about apologizing for being a bad mom. She is a Strong Female Character, reduced chiefly to her roles in the lives of the men around her.
Meanwhile, the twins are ghastly throwbacks to the lisping, sissy villains of 1960s movies. Surrounded by tanned, brawny men in leather armor, Geta and Caracalla are scrawny, sickly pale, and dress in embroidered robes and gold crowns, rocking excitedly in their thrones like mischievous children. They are not just foils to Lucius and the other traditionally manly men strutting and brawling in Gladiator II. The emperors are queer-coded characters, meant to be repellant not only for their sadistic behavior but also for their mewling femininity, a sign of their weakness. They are an amped-up version of Phoenix's Commodus, not only because there are two of them, but because they are even more visibly effete — as if the root of their evil was their lack of machismo.
The tropes in this emperor diptych are bizarrely dated, undercutting Gladiator II's exploration of masculinity by leaning into regressive tropes. Would it not have been enough to make them sickly? Or with an ego based on power over nobility? In either case, Washington's Macrinus comes to complicate matters and save this movie from Scarpa and Scott's worst impulses.
Denzel Washington is glorious as Gladiator II's most compelling figure.
Denzel Washington plays Macrinus in "Gladiator II." Credit: Paramount Pictures
Mescal will rightly win praise for his textured lead turn, and Pascal fans will cheer for his latest portrayal of a world-weary warrior, equally dashing and haunted. (Their face-off is among the movie's most thrilling sequences, and it doesn't even involve shark attacks!) Yet it is no surprise that 10-time Oscar nominee (and two-time Academy Award–winner) Denzel Washington steals this movie.
Where much of the cast is pitched into the labyrinthine retread of the first film's plotline, Washington forges a fresh path with Macrinus. Introduced as a slave owner who buys Lucius to fight in the Colosseum, Macrinus is bedecked in gold and richly colored fabrics that scream of wealth. But even when Scott cuts to close-ups that clip out these visual cues, Washington's countenance alone conveys the character's comfortable status. His physicality, full of grand, sweeping arm gestures that make dramatic use of his rich robes, suggests this man is comfortable being seen — in fact, he demands to be! And yet, there's a glimmer in his eye that warns he's no fool like Rome's senators and emperors, who relish every cheap thrill of sex, violence, and animal cruelty. He is a force of masculinity, mighty yet terrible, focused on what he can own, not what he might build for others.
Scarpa bestows upon Washington a monologue of backstory, which the rightfully heralded actor makes a feast of. But even in little moments of smiling threats or whispered villainy, he is utterly compelling. Part of this is Washington's screen presence, which is still that of an absolute movie star. He carries a gravitas that suggests the most powerful man in Rome is not the guy wielding the mightiest sword, but the one who can turn every word into a weapon.
Make no mistake. Gladiator II is bedecked with action sequences that are awe-inspiring — especially in the IMAX presentation showed to critics. The fight choreography feels as ruthless as the gnarliest matches out of the AEW. There are man-versus-beast matches that are electrifyingly feral, despite Mescal facing off against a clearly CG critter. And there are one-on-one duels that are powerful not only in their violent blows but in their emotional underpinnings. And yet, Washington is the film's most marvelous draw. Whether he is making a plaything out of a dead man's head or flashing his signature smile like a warning, he is marvelous to behold.
In short, Scott's Gladiator II is an ambitious film, full of action, drama, stranger-than-fiction history, and palpable emotion, but it's also tiresome and riddled with problematic tropes. Still, it's undeniably enthralling, which is more than can be said for his similarly grand Napoleon. For all its faults, Gladiator II is an extraordinary film, the kind that demands to be seen in theaters.
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