It’s wild. It’s ridiculous. It’s the cinematic equivalent of pizza for breakfast. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II (2024) is his latest good-enough spectacle, designed to bowl viewers over and leave them clutching their popcorn. It’s nothing like Scott’s old masterpieces, but as he’s made perfectly clear – he doesn’t care, so why should the audience? Sit back, buy an inappropriately-priced soft drink and an industrial-sized dustbin of popcorn, and enjoy Gladiator II (2024) for the mind-melting blockbuster romp that it is. But buyer beware – don’t expect anything else.
Pizza for breakfast is the kind of thing you might see in the Rome of Gladiator II (2024). It’s already a world where Romans read newspapers, baboons seemingly cross-bred with aliens are unleashed, and sharks lent from the set of the Sharknado films roam the Coliseum. This film is spectacle over substance, and anachronisms come thick and fast. Paul Mescal stars as Hanno, a hunky captain captured by Roman general Acacius as the empire invades Numidia, in the film’s first and probably best battle sequence. Proving himself in the gladiatorial arena (as the bonkers twin emperors Caracalla and Geta drive Rome further into degradation), Hanno finds first success, then fame, and then finds himself unexpectedly crucial to the survival of Rome as anarchy looms.
It’s a melodramatic and colourful film underpinned by a melodramatic and colourful cast. Paul Mescal gurns and grimaces and does his best to elevate his generic hero into a truly interesting protagonist. He’s let down by a weak script, but it’s great to see him cemented as a real A-lister following the success of Aftersun (2022) and All Of Us Strangers (2023). The audience never stops believing in him, and in a frothy action-centred movie with an increasingly silly narrative, that’s the greatest compliment to Mescal.
Meanwhile, Pedro Pascal is coolly understated as the beleaguered general Acacius. He shuns the melodrama and within ten seconds of his introduction tells the audience everything you need to know about his character – his weariness, his self-loathing, and his turmoil are written in every frown and gesture. There’s an actor who always delivers.
But! As every critic’s acknowledged, the real scene-stealer is Denzel Washington as the gladiator-buyer Macrinus. Above everyone else, he recognises that he’s in a campy swords-and-sandals melodrama and turns the charming malice first up to eleven and then off the charts – his flamboyant charisma melting away to reveal a brutally sinister edge. It’s his performance alone that drives the film along and keeps our eyes glued to the screen.
So, this is a simple film of heroes and villains – frenetic, historically baffling, stuffed with cliché and washed down with spectacular action set-pieces. But it works. It’s laughable fun, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. And to complement the melodrama and the action, the cast is stacked with talent. Forget the aforementioned A-listers and play the game of spotting the wealth of classic performers, with Shakespearean legend Derek Jacobi, Game of Thrones’ Rory McCann, Matt Lucas, and Tim McInnerny all bringing top performances to their brief parts.
Ridley Scott’s done making masterpieces. The legendary director is 87 and hasn’t got a damn left to give, railing at the supposedly phone-addicted youth for apparently disliking The Last Duel (2022) and raging at historians like Dan Snow for pointing out the distortions of history in Napoleon (2023) and Gladiator II (2024). He’s out to make the films he wants to make at lightning speed. Napoleon (2023) was shot in two months. Gladiator II (2024) took 51 days. He’s mastered the art of making just-good-enough blockbusters with appallingly talented casts, frenetic action, and dazzling visuals, and this is one of his recent best.
Just like eating pizza for breakfast, you can enjoy the one-time indulgence of Gladiator II (2024), but at the end of it all, it’s not exactly satisfying. If simple escapism is art, then this is the Mona Lisa. Look up the largest cinema screen near you, and turn down your brain for this one.
Still: Paramount Pictures