'Gladiator II' Enters the Arena
When Gladiator roared into theaters in the summer of 2000, it was the end of an era for “epic” filmmaking and the birth of a new chapter in the career of its director, Ridley Scott. The previous decade saw Hollywood heaping praise on the type of massive historical epics that Scott’s Roman Empire adventure film embodied; like Gladiator, 1990s films like Schindler’s List, Braveheart, The English Patient, and Titanic walked away with the Academy Award for Best Picture. This would prove to be a passing phase, as 2000 also saw the release of X-Men, the first major “four quadrant” superhero movie that inspired the resurgence of the genre.
In the 24 years since Gladiator, historical epics are anomalies, rather than trend-setters; one of the most shocking aspects of Oppenheimer’s success last year was that audiences were willing to sit down for a three-hour hour historical drama that mostly consisted of men talking in rooms. Even if the industry has been more dedicated to the “X-Men model,” Scott hasn’t given up on reiterating the success of Gladiator. Scott was a respected genre filmmaker, with early hits like Alien, Blade Runner, and Thelma & Louise. However, the post-Gladiator era saw Scott drawn to more massive “rise and fall” films covering significant moments in world history, such as Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven, American Gangster, Robin Hood, Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Last Duel, and Napoleon.
Even if the scale of Scott’s films have only increased since Gladiator, the quality’s mixed. While creative successes like The Last Duel and Kingdom of Heaven were met with middling box office results, others like Robin Hood and Exodus: Gods and Kings were dismissed as creative failures. Scott, now 87, doesn’t seem interested in “scaling down.” Although sequels have been made to both Blade Runner and Alien, a continuation of the Gladiator universe would allow Scott to work within the same creative field that has dominated the last two decades of his career.
Gladiator II isn’t a better film than Gladiator, but it’s bigger, angrier, and perhaps more ambitious. The original Gladiator was a fairly straightforward execution of Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s myth,” in which Russell Crowe’s Maximus is forcibly humbled by the death of his family, and rises to take down the cruel Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) and restore “the dream of Rome” prophesied by Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris).
It doesn’t take Gladiator II long to indicate this didn’t really have a real effect on the Empire’s trajectory; Rome’s once again at war, with the ruthless General Marcus Acacias (Pedro Pascal) claiming new territories for the twin Emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). Maximus’ son, Lucius (Paul Mescal), is thrust into the same gladiatorial arena that his father was imprisoned after tragedy strikes his family. Despite the broad similarities between the two films narratively, the protagonists couldn’t be more different; if Maximus was a respected war hero determined to find peace, Lucius is an unnamed beast who relishes the opportunity to spill blood in the name of those that he’s lost.
Stylistically, Gladiator II is more indebted to the style of Scott’s late brother, Tony, who lionized the “vulgar auteur” theory with action films like True Romance, Top Gun, Man on Fire, and Crimson Tide. The scale of the gladiatorial games has been amplified, with mutant apes, massive ship battles, and hordes of bows-and-arrows infecting the arena. The nihilism comes from seeing why these violent spectacles are created for the sake of populist entertainment; in between the grotesque moments of combat, the film shifts focus to show how the charismatic slave owner Macrinus (Denzel Washington) utilizes Lucus’ success to gain influence with the Emperors.
Scott’s harkening back to the “Golden Age of Hollywood” films like Spartacus and Ben-Hur, in which the traditional “hero’s journey” narrative is intertwined with a significant moment within the development of democracy and religion. Gladiator II invokes this concept, but each side of the equation is just as ugly; Lucius finds nothing but more bloodlust in the arena as his aggressive tactics gain the favor of the Roman people, and Macrinus trades his newfound favor to restore Rome to the dictatorial ways of its past. It’s remarked upon in several instances by Macrinus that the “dream of Rome” that Marcus Aurelius had was just that, a dream. In reality, those with power will find a way to make the subjugation of citizens a populist policy. Leave it to Scott, an aging British filmmaker making an epic about the Roman Empire, to make one of the timeliest political films of 2024.
While the first film allowed viewers to invest in Maximus slowly gaining the support of the Roman people, there’s no implication in Gladiator II that the events in the Colosseum will solve anything. Lucius is faced with the uncomfortable truth that the death of just one man will not offer him peace for the violence committed to his family; he’ll kill the entire movement that initiated the war, and so his quest for vengeance is doomed.