The year 2024 has been the year of long-awaited sequels, including Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice (thirty-six years later), Twisters (twenty-eight years later), and Gladiator II (twenty-four years later).
In 2000, Ridley Scott unleashed the lions on us with the Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix led Gladiator. Winning five awards at the 73rd Academy Awards and the second highest-grossing film at the box office in 2000 behind Mission: Impossible 2, many were curious about what a Gladiator sequel would bring.
Looking at the history, Gladiator II was fast-tracked, but development was halted in 2006 when DreamWorks was sold to Paramount. It was not officially announced that it was a go until 2018. Then, the pandemic hit, and filming did not start until 2023, but again got waylaid for five months for the writers/actors strikes, and finally finished this year.
Scott returned to the director’s chair for his long-in-great sequel for Paramount Pictures, which was released just prior to the holiday season on November 22, 2024. The new epic stars Paul Mescal (Normal People 2020, Foe 2023), Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones series, The Mandalorian), Denzel Washington (Malcolm X 19982, Flight 2012), Connie Nielsen (Gladiator 2000, Nobody 2021), Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things series, A Quiet Place: Day One 2024), Fred Hechinger (Pam & Tommy 2022, Kraven: The Hunter 2024), Lior Raz (Fauda series, Hit & Run series), and Derek Jacobi (Gladiator 2000, Good Omens series).
The story follows Lucius after his home is conquered by the tyrannical emperors who now lead Rome. Forced to enter the Colosseum, he must look to his past for strength to restore Rome’s glory to its people.
Gladiator II moves the storyline from Gladiator seamlessly, with Lucius (Paul Mescal) being the son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus sixteen years later. From there, we are off in a sandbox full of heroism, A lot of treachery, social issues that are still relevant today, and beautiful locales. Let us break those down.
Maximus’s legacy influences Lucius’s decisions while having much to live up to. Revenge is a recurring theme with new generation power struggles mirroring and going beyond the original with, in one case, brother turning on brother. Between the two movies, the battle of freedom versus authority and Lucius’s journey question the balance between personal freedom and loyalty to Rome, with tragic consequences. Human nature, in all its complexities, plays a huge part in any movie’s characters, arguably more so in Gladiator II’s society with its constant conflict and moral ambiguity.
The film’s political vision is that effeminate or queer-coded men have power (Denzel Washington has said he shot a scene where he was full-on kissing another man, but it was cut). The solution is to violently return that power to straight, muscular strongmen, which is one of the social themes, as well as the shallowness of the mob, who are easily placated with bread and circuses. Finally, the film revisits the iconic imagery of the wheat fields from Gladiator, with Maximus’ hand brushing through the wheat to symbolize the afterlife and the connection between father and son.
However, none of these themes can stick to the landing if the setting does not look authentic and the cast does not bring their A-game. Morocco and Malta served for a believable ancient Rome with a few months of filming in the UK. CG dog baboons, a ridden rhino, and sharks, which were actually intended for Gladiator but for the technology not being up to muster at the time, were rendered in the Colosseum.
The cast sells their characters straight, with Washington standing out for playing the rare heel, a gay heel, no doubt, only playing one definitely in 2001’s Training Day and 2007’s American Gangster, depending on your point of view. A top-notch cast, indeed.
Made for an estimated one-fifty million dollars, Gladiator II has made over four hundred million dollars so far. Regardless of any lower scores or ratings on critic authority sites like Rotten Tomatoes, Scott has said that he is already working on a plot for Gladiator III and that there certainly be another film. He described the plot as having “the beginning of a very good footprint.” Scott adds he wants to make a trilogy, Coppola’s The Godfather. Speculation has it that it could be a revenge story with darker overtones. Hopefully, it will not be another twenty-four wait to see the conclusion to Scott’s epic. Until then, Cryptic Rock gives Gladiator II 5 out of 5 stars.
){kind=link}
No comment