Gladiator II does what the worst sequels are guilty of and resets everything. It ignores the resolution of the original film just so it can just redo it. Maximus dies for the dream of Rome, the film ending with a hint of hope, but it never comes. Why? The film doesn’t even bother to explain. Rome is straight back to the way it was, with the senate backgrounded and a mad emperor (or two) on the throne, just so we can do it all again.
That’s the biggest issue with the film. It feels like a retread. After the admittedly cool opening battle which puts us on the other side of a roman invasion than the opening of the original, the first hour is fairly weak. Watching it, I thought I didn’t like the movie at all. It’s beat-for-beat the same as the first. The same scenes and moments and character archetypes but whizzed through at a faster pace and with less development. But then it starts to get good.
Gladiator II improves dramatically when it finally begins to diverge from the first film. It begins to play with the same ideas as the original but each plot takes a new path. I grew to steadily enjoy the film and by the end I really liked it. It’s a solid movie but it’s a shame they couldn’t think of a way into the story without copying the exact same set-up as the first, taking up the first half.
The opening act of Lucius training as a gladiator felt like part of the story even the filmmakers couldn’t get excited about. Ridley Scott rushes through it while more interesting things happen with other characters. Until the third act, it’s a film with a dull protagonist and fascinating side characters. Those early moments that are most like Gladiator, working so well in that original film, are the weakest here. I don’t buy Lucius bonding with his fellow gladiators and that fight with the monkeys is the worst in the film. They look more closely related to Xenomorphs than anything on Earth. The highlight of this section is when all the grandeur, pomp, and ceremony is stripped away and the emperors get two gladiators to fight to the death in front of them at a party. That’s a brutal scene and it felt like something new.
The emperors themselves I hated, and not only in the way the film wanted me too. They feel too much like Commodus clones with none of the backstory or subtilties. Where did they come from? Why are they like this? There are no answers to these questions. They are simply annoying, terrible people ruling Rome because the film needs them to be and the actors deliver bad, shouty, stereotypically evil performances. As with the whole movie, one needs to put up with the bad elements until a twist turns it good. They are the rulers only so Macrinus has someone to manipulate and murder, leading to his rule. When that happens, brilliant. I loved that twist. Denzel Washington was a joy to watch and Macrinus one of the more interesting characters in the film. He starts off as a clone of Oliver Reed’s Proximo from the original but becomes something different; again, just like the whole film.
I imagine there were two emperors to play into the repeated motif of doubles throughout the sequel. The Romulus and Remus statue and legend is prominent and even the character of Maximus is split between two: Lucius and his perceived enemy Acacius, the General, both taking on parts of his role here. The plot is shared between them and is too similar to Maximus’s until Acacius is killed and the two films fully diverge, literally breaking out of the colosseum. I know some don’t like the ‘reveal’ that Lucius is Maximus’s son but it doesn’t bother me because I personally don’t think it comes out of nowhere. I always took it as subtext in the original film; it was a common fan theory backed up with implication. But what is an issue is that it ultimately doesn’t really matter. Lucius’s maternal family is more important, making him heir to Rome, and Maximus is more a connection for viewers than it is for anyone in the film.
Gladiator II ends, more or less, in the same place as the first film. So lets now continue the story and Gladiator III can be the sequel to II that II could have been to I. The second film was in many ways a retread, however enjoyable it becomes in its second half, and the third film has to be different. It can’t just reset again. The status quo has shifted and if we’re continuing on from the second film immediately, rather than returning and re-establishing after decades away, then it’d be a unique Gladiator movie. If a Gladiator movie at all, maybe only in name. It could be a Rome movie, focused more on the political intrigue that worked so well, about the struggles of the now powerful senate and a new emperor struggling to lead. Will Lucius stay steadfast and true or become corrupted? Would the former gladiator have to preside over new games for some reason, as the utopic vision of Marcus Aurelius’ Rome is put to the test?
I don’t know what the third film would look like or even what kind of film it would be and that’s why I want it. After the overly familiar second film it could be something special as long as Ridley Scott and the writer know what they want to explore. Scott has an idea and is developing a script, with Lucius tasked with continuing a reputation he does not want. The director has likened the ending of Gladiator II to The Godfather Part II (steady on, Ridley) and as someone who actually quite likes The Godfather Part III I want to see what’s next.
A potential third film is dependent on how financially successful the second film is. Still in cinemas, Gladiator II is doing decent money but had such a huge budget I struggle to see how viable it is. Scott always appears to have about ten projects on the go, seemingly as a way to ward off retirement and death, and I would love for him to return to this series within the next few years. Gladiator III could not only deliver on the dream of Rome but also the promise of the first film’s ending in a way Gladiator II does not.
