‘Gladiator II’ (2024) Movie Review - One of the Worst Films of the Year

The ghost of Gladiator looms over Gladiator II. Once again, we have a tyrant ruler (or rulers). The wife of the main character is killed by the soldiers. Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) meets the savior of Rome in his quarters at night. The hero tries to protect his team in the Colosseum by asking them to stick together. The Roman general expresses his desire to take a break from war and is eventually thrown to fight in the Colosseum. Finally, let's not forget the infamous thumbs up and thumbs down. You spend most of your time discovering such connections between this Gladiator and its prequel. The opening text informs us that it has been 16 years since the events of the first Gladiator and that Maximus' dream regarding Rome has been forgotten. Well, director Ridley Scott and writer David Scarpa must have also thought that people would have forgotten the first film's events. What else could explain the mentioned repetitions? But my main issue with Gladiator II is that Scott isn't even trying to entertain us. The combat scenes are executed with a professionalism that screams, "I can still handle big set pieces." Scott is simply proving a point. He shows us ships and the crowd in Rome and says, "See, age is just a number." He sweats and smiles and gives us visuals that are merely functional. You don't look at the screen with awe because the images do nothing more than depict the ongoing event with a dramatic tone that's monotonous and loud. When Scott, through black-and-white colors, attempts to beautify his images, he looks like a wannabe art house director. He reaches for "poetry" so desperately that you want to take him aside and tell him to calm down.

What changes can you notice in Scott? What's the difference between the man who made Gladiator and the man who has made this sequel? After all these years, the filmmaker has certainly learned how to shoot action scenes with some competence. The severing of the heads and the arms looks better executed here than in Gladiator (there, the quick, shabby cuts undermined the violence). Yet, I won't exactly call Gladiator II "a violent poem with exceptional force." The gory sequences have routine rhythms - everything looks utterly conventional. Scott has made an impersonal epic with dull characters. People are bitter, vindictive, or sad. They are all uninteresting and act like puppets. As the tyrant rulers Caracalla and Geta, Fred Hechinger, and Joseph Quinn behave like Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus. Phoenix's performance in Gladiator was far from his best work, and by following in his footsteps, Hechinger and Quinn also end up having an unmemorable screen presence. Their campy behavior collides with the film's mostly dour mood, which only disconnects you from the ongoing events. This also has a negative impact on scenes that are meant to be absurd and hilarious, like the one where a monkey is given a position of power. Something like this sounds funny and ridiculous on paper, but on the screen, it feels as if the joke is being dispensed with a straight face, leaving you all confused about what to do with this moment. A voice inside your head tells you to laugh, but your body doesn't believe in the joke, and thus, you don't laugh.

I don't want to get into story details because, frankly, it's one of the stupidest things I have seen this year. You don't expect something like this from a renowned filmmaker like Scott. I didn't like either Napoleon or The Last Duel, but after watching Gladiator II, I think those two films were quite admirable. It's not that you can't make a good film out of Gladiator II's plot. If nothing else, Scott could have shown the "kids" how to make a thrilling spectacle out of a square material. Scott, though, seems to be going through the motions. What Gladiator II lacks is a personal touch. It doesn't have the vigor, the vitality of a master who immerses you in the intensity of his images. The roots themselves are rotten by the casting of Paul Mescal. He just isn't convincing as a warrior. Mescal can serve as an eye candy - a teenage heartthrob. Give him armor and tell him to swing swords, and he looks like a model posing in an expensive costume to impress the onlookers. There is nothing primal about his rage; it's self-conscious. When he smiles, he seems to be playfully winking at the audience. With nothing fascinating to hold onto here, my eyes began to shut from boredom. I could have fallen asleep in the theater, but a girl excitedly chattering behind me snapped me out of my drowsiness. As I regained my senses, I saw Mescal's character giving a speech about making Rome great again or something, and I wished the girl behind me hadn't woken me up.

Final Score- [1.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times