Strength and Honor
A review of “Gladiator II”
As a movie, Gladiator II is certainly entertaining enough. There’s more than enough sword-and-sandals action, political intrigue, and devilishly charismatic performances to meet audience expectations. But the film also takes chronic pains to remind its viewers of its vastly superior and far more illustrious predecessor, inviting a cinematic comparison it can’t help but lose.
Ultimately, Gladiator II lacks the sort of conviction and self-confidence that would have allowed it to measure up to the high standards set by the original film. The movie surfaces otherwise compelling themes of power and principle too intermittently to see them through to a satisfying conclusion. Nor does it adequately connect these ideas to its main characters in ways that lend them real emotional weight. Director Ridley Scott instead opts for a late-film narrative reveal that keeps the movie from fully fleshing out both its characters and its themes—and rushes it to its climax far too quickly.
Still, Gladiator II has plenty going for it.
That starts with the actors. Denzel Washington sinks his teeth into the role of Macrinus, a former slave turned patrician, politician, and gladiator owner, slipping from flattery to menace without missing a beat. Pedro Pascal’s noble general Acacius deserves more screen time than he’s given here; more than any other character in the film, Acacius adheres more closely to Stoic philosophical principles, doing his duty as he sees it as best he can and noting the transience of all things—empires and emperors included—after his plot to overthrow the decadent co-emperors Geta and Caracalla is revealed.
Nor is Stoic philosophy itself butchered or misrepresented in Gladiator II—not that it was portrayed with exceptional accuracy in the first film. (Suffice it to say that the history depicted in the movie isn’t remotely accurate.) Acacius, for instance, remains composed and calm when facing execution for his attempted coup against the ruling emperors, and his remarks on impermanence find a strong echo in the Meditations of the historical Marcus Aurelius.1 The film’s main protagonist, Lucius (the son of Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla, adequately portrayed by Paul Mescal), also makes clear his aim to resurrect the “dream that was Rome” as articulated by his late grandfather. And he defines that dream more or less the same way the actual Marcus does in the Meditations: “a political system with the same laws for all, governed on the principles of personal and political equality, and of a monarchy that chiefly prizes the freedom of its subjects.” (1.14)
But these strengths only call attention to how Gladiator II squanders a potentially rich thematic contest between power and principle. The film waits too long to plant the seeds of this intriguing conflict between the party of principle, represented alternately by Acacius, Lucilla, and Lucius, and the apostle of power, Macrinus, leaving it too little time to grow and unfold for audiences.
Macrinus, for one, repeatedly asserts his own firm belief in power as an end in itself, an object worthy of pursuit and acquisition in its own right. Rome worships power, he says, and so does he. A former slave in the imperial household under Marcus, Macrinus makes his underlying motives clear: he quotes the great late republican orator Cicero to the effect that freed slaves do not want to end slavery but merely desire slaves of their own. Accordingly, Macrinus rejects the admonition of the historical Marcus to not become like one’s enemy; he wants the imperial throne for himself and will do whatever it takes—and betray or murder whoever he must—to seize it.
Unfortunately, the film’s plot requires Macrinus’s scheming to remain opaque until much too late in its narrative, making it exceedingly difficult for Gladiator II to set up its central themes and conflicts as strongly as it could. Worse, the movie dilutes its thematic counterpoint with a weak, convoluted revenge plot and one protagonist too many. This narrative gives Acacius short shrift as a character, while Lucius’s own character arc and moral evolution over the course of the film leaves much to be desired. Constant referrals to the far more powerful themes of the original Gladiator only throw its successor’s shortcomings into even starker relief.
The strangely tepid score composed Harry Gregson-Williams abets these weaknesses; it contains few rousing or moving orchestral cues and only faint echoes of Hans Zimmer’s score for the first film. And while I’m not usually one to complain about the way movies these days are made or shot, Gladiator II does seem noticeably brighter and more heavily lit than its predecessor. It affects the film’s overall tone in somewhat subtle ways, washing out its visuals and rendering them unable to convey emotion or meaning as effectively as they otherwise could. For all the advances in visual effects over the past quarter century, moreover, Rome and the Colosseum both somehow feel much smaller and less grand than they did in the original Gladiator.
If Gladiator II falls well short of the original film, it still mostly does what it needs to do to deliver for those of us who grew up watching its predecessor. Most of all, though, it’s a missed opportunity: with a thematic clash between power and principle amidst the recurrence of despotism, Gladiator II could’ve been the movie for our current moment—if only it believed in itself more.
Are we not entertained? We’re entertained just enough to want another round.
The film does contain one odd anachronism (among many others): Macrinus refers to the Meditations as if it’s a widely known and disseminated work some sixteen years after Marcus’s death. Set aside the fact that these philosophical notebooks are referred to as the Meditations, a title they wouldn’t pick up for millennia—it makes sense that characters in a contemporary work of fiction would refer to the Meditations by its modern name. The issue is that they’re referring to it at all; Marcus almost certainly never intended his private philosophical reflections for wide publication, and it’s far from clear when, exactly, the Meditations entered public circulation.