Gladiator II: worth the wait?

Almost twenty-five years after the original, Ridley Scott has revived his Oscar-winning classic, Gladiator, with a new cast and a new story. Big sandals to fill, and does this big-ticket sequel do the business?

As a rule, I'm not a fan of sequels, prequels or franchises. They encourage lazy storytelling and unsatisfying endings and there are too many of them. However, I made an exception for Gladiator, as it stars one of my favourite actors, Paul Mescal, and also because my mum wanted to come to the cinema with me for the first time since the 1990s.

Both mum and I enjoyed the film and we agreed on the following. It really is best seen on a big screen; Scott's recreation of Rome is fantastically detailed, and the use of a 1:1 scale Colosseum set full of baying extras for the arena scenes really does makes it believable. It's a grand visual spectacle and the music, which includes Lisa Gerrard's classic Gladiator theme, is pretty good too.

There's only so much you can do with a story about a gladiator. He wins or he loses, lives or he dies, and with two hours plus running time, it's obvious that Mescal's Hanno is a survivor. He's fighting for his freedom, with the final aim of avenging the destruction of his adopted home city of Numidia, preferably by taking the scalp of General Acacius (Pedro Pascal). As a Numidian prisoner of war, he has been purchased by gladiator trader, senator and general-purpose person of influence, Macrinus, played with great skill and style by Denzel Washington.

Mescal is an extremely capable actor, but this sadly isn't one of his best performances. He has the physicality and the emotional expression in his face, but he's hampered by a flat faux-Shakespearean delivery and some fairly clunky lines. Hanno has clearly travelled a lot; he lives in modern Algeria, has lived in Egypt and has a Germanic-sounding name, as well as being married to a woman who appears to be a Scythian. 

By contrast, Pascal masters the speaking style and gets better dialogue. Washington keeps his own accent and steals every scene he is in, scheming and insinuating. You don't know whether he's a hero or a villain for quite some time but you want to see more of him and work it out.

Pascal's character is more subtle, a career military man with an agenda of his own and married to Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), Commodus's sister and one of the few returning characters. Through Lucilla, we learn to Hanno is actually a returning character too - he is the grown-up version of her son, Lucius Verus, who flees at the end of the first film. It's also revealed that he's the son of Russell Crowe's Maximus, who looms large over the narrative although he doesn't appear, having been dead for 16 years. This unlikely twist adds little to the story and is an excuse to link the first and second movies, although it does mean we get to see more of Nielsen this time.

The story of Hanno/Lucius is almost secondary to the plot involving the power-hungry Macrinus and his rival Acacius. Both men have the ear of the dual emperors, the volatile and vindictive twins Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). I felt that these shrieking, childish rulers, with their love of violence and poorly-applied makeup, were under-used as characters, adding dark humour and matching the gory decadence of the fight scenes.

As much as Gladiator II is a visual treat, it's also a violent one. The original never shied away from bloodshed, but this time, it's turned up to eleven. Body parts are severed, people are gored by a variety of animals and stabbed in increasingly creative ways. It's darker and nastier than the first film, but that befits the subject matter. It also amps up the camp, led by Geta and Caracalla flapping about in embroidery and jangly jewels and by a series of decadent senators, including a great turn by Tim McInnerny as Thraex, another rival to Macrinus. The parties are just as wild.

Costume is as strong in Gladiator II as the Colosseum set and the epic fight scenes. We're not talking serious historical accuracy, but we are talking Washington striding about in beautiful African-Roman tunics and Pascal in elegantly regal armour. The whole point of the film isn't a historical story or even really Lucius Verus reclaiming his birthright. It's a holiday in the dangerous and tragic decadence of the Roman elite, and you get to watch from a safe distance.