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Gladiator II Is Kind of a Comedy
What, like the fall of Rome isn’t a little silly?
Just about every element of the first film that people like or remember is back and hits you like a hammer: fingertips sifting through wheat, Paul Mescal’s Lucius encouraging other fighters to stick close to him during battle, Derek Jacobi. While there’s a kind of knowing, secondhand embarrassment to watching Paul Mescal try to do Russell Crowe’s deep gravelly voice or that awkward first act where we’re supposed to buy him as a white general of a Pan-African army, the film’s attempts to build meaningful emotional arcs stumble again and again. In fact, the villains are so high-spirited and indulgently grotesque that they’re much more fun to carry water for than Mescal’s bruised reunion with his mother, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), or dreary working-class rebellion.
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