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‘Gladiator II’ Review: Paul Mescal Is a Pensive Avenger in Ridley Scott’s Serviceable but Far From Great Sequel
It's a solid piece of neoclassical popcorn, with Paul Mescal as a pensive avenger, but it's ultimately a mere shadow of "Gladiator."
Written by David Scarpa (“Napoleon”) and directed by Scott (who, at 86, hasn’t lost his touch for the peacock pageantry of teeming masses thirsting for blood), the movie is a solid piece of neoclassical popcorn — a serviceable epic of brutal warfare, Colosseum duels featuring lavish decapitations and beasts both animal and human, along with the middlebrow “decadence” of palace intrigue. Twenty-four years ago, “Gladiator” was bracingly old and new at the same time: a hyperviolent literate action movie rooted in the theatrical antiquity of Hollywood’s past and rendered with the (then-novel) VFX of the future. First, though, he must survive in the gladiatorial arena, which he does by taking on a team of wild monkeys (who seem like they’re from another planet, which is strange) and drawing the attention of Macrinus ( Denzel Washington), a former slave who runs the gladiator bullpen and becomes Lucius’s mentor.
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