Illustrating yet again Hollywood’s penchant for milking established IP at the expense of coming up with new and original ideas, 86-year-old filmmaker Ridley Scott is back with a sequel to his 2000 swords and sandals epic, GLADIATOR. This time around, though, Joaquin Phoenix and Russell Crowe are nowhere to be seen — their characters both died in the first installment — though there was plenty of speculation that Crowe’s character, Maximus Decimus Meridius, would somehow make an appearance in the sequel. Even so, a couple of familiar faces do reprise their roles in GLADIATOR II. Connie Nielsen (NOBODY; the WONDER WOMAN films) is again playing Lucilla, the late emperor Marcus Aurelius’ daughter, Maximus’ former lover and Commodus’ sister, and 86-year-old acting legend Derek Jacobi (TOMB RAIDER; GRACE OF MONACO) returns as Senator Gracchus.

It’s now 200 AD, 16 years after the events in GLADIATOR, and Lucius Verus (now played by Paul Mescal, ALL OF US STRANGERS), the son of Maximus and Lucilla, is all grown up, going by the name of Hanno to hide his true identity, and living a quiet life with his wife in Numidia, located on the coast of northwest Africa. When the Roman army led by General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal, TV’s THE MANDALORIAN and THE LAST OF US) lays siege to Numidia, Hanno is captured and taken back to Rome as a slave. Hanno quickly proves his worth as an able fighter and he is purchased by Macrinus (Denzel Washington, the EQUALIZER films), a former slave himself who rose up to become a wealthy owner of gladiators. Hanno tells Macrinus that he wants Acacius’ head and Macrinus says that if Hanno keeps winning as a gladiator, he will arrange for that to happen. Behind the scenes, various forces are scheming to depose Rome’s tyrannical co-emperors, the twins Geta (Joseph Quinn, OVERLORD; A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger, THELMA), and return the empire to its once-noble roots.

In one big way, GLADIATOR II is a lot like GLADIATOR – an able fighter, who loses everything at the hands of the Romans, channels his burning rage to avenge his family’s death and take down the empire, fighting his way up to become a beloved Colosseum gladiator. I’ll admit that’s a bit reductive because GLADIATOR II has its differences too. Thanks to new and much-improved VFX technology, Scott was able to do things with this film that he could only have dreamt of doing 24 years ago. For starters, this film is a lot bloodier than its predecessor with gladiators getting gored by a charging rhino and getting sliced to bits by their adversaries in the ring. And a rhino isn’t the only exotic animal to be seen here. The gladiators also have to deal with a team of carnivorous hairless baboons as well as some sharks that also have a taste for blood. Yes, sharks, as somehow the Romans are able to flood the Colosseum and fill it with the toothy maneaters. It’s JAWS meets SPARTACUS! Speaking of that Kirk Douglas classic, GLADIATOR II also has its SPARTACUS moment when a group of gladiators all take responsibility for something that occurred. Nicely played!

Mescal does a good job in what is probably his largest role to date but, let’s be honest here, he’s no Russell Crowe. (GLADIATOR won five Oscars including Best Picture and Crowe took home the Best Actor Oscar for his performance.) I’ll give him full marks for getting into shape and apparently doing his own stunts but the acting was, like much of the film, okay but not brilliant. The film’s saving grace is Denzel Washington, who chews up every scene he is in with his flamboyant performance. It’s alluded that Macrinus is bisexual and, indeed, one scene involving a full-on man-on-man kiss was cut from the final edit. When you see the film, you’ll know where that scene was. That, my friend, is politics. Quinn and Hechinger are a lot of fun to watch as the despotic duo but, unfortunately, their tyranny is no match for Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus. Whereas Commodus was calculating, these two are capricious. Perhaps that should make them more dangerous but we don’t really get much of a sense of that. The actor who really loses out though is Pedro Pascal. His character arc is seemingly underwritten and the film doesn’t have nearly enough interaction between Hanno and Acacius. Perhaps there was more to it that ended up on the cutting room floor. I’m sure Scott made some difficult choices to keep the film’s runtime under 2-1/2 hours.

All in all, though, GLADIATOR II is enjoyable popcorn entertainment. Scott, who is a master at staging large-scale set pieces, doesn’t hold back here and the ones in this film don’t disappoint. You can’t complain about that.

GLADIATOR II is out now (November 15th) in Hong Kong. It opens in the US on the 22nd. Did we really need this sequel? Probably not but it’s a decent follow-up to the original. Go check it out on a large screen.

Thanks for reading but don’t be a lurker! If you liked what you just read, here are some suggestions:

Sign up to receive my movie reviews in your inbox automatically
Share this review on your Facebook page
Leave me a message telling me what you thought of my review or the film
Bookmark the site and visit often
Like my Howard For Film Facebook page
Watch my reviews on my YouTube page
Check out my Howard For Film magazine on Flipboard
Tell your friends about the site