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While Paul Mescal impresses in Ridley Scott’s riveting sequel, a stellar Denzel Washington rather eclipses the rest of the cast
4/5
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Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II opens in much the same way as the first: with the unleashing of hell. This time round, however, our hero Lucius (Paul Mescal), the illegitimate son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus, isn’t the one doing the unleashing. He’s a humble farmer – cue a hands-through-wheat shot, though this time the grain has been harvested – and also a conscript in the Numidian army, which is amassing on the walls of one of the northern African province’s fortified ports. Why? Because the Roman Army, led by general Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), has a phalanx of galleons en route.
The Mediterranean sun is beating down on both sides – and is joined soon enough by showers of arrows and blazing projectiles that arc through the air like flaming Christmas puddings. As battle is met, one poor unfortunate gets skewered to the frame of his own trebuchet by a bolt from a rival ballista. That’s Scott setting the grisly tone – but also sending the viewer a message. For the next two and a half hours, matey, your attention’s going nowhere.
It should be said right away that Scott’s long-awaited real-time sequel – set and released 20-some years after his Oscar-winning original – isn’t quite as strong as its predecessor. But it’s worth saying straight after that Gladiator II is still the year’s most relentlessly entertaining blockbuster: a Roman epic that can’t resist Roman all over the place. The film zig-zags madly from ribald comedy to sweeping action, then quivering melodrama, with servants gliding in and out of the shadows.
If the original Gladiator was the cinematic equivalent of a six-course meal, think of this one as an exploding buffet table. Yet despite its tonal unruliness and extraordinary sweep – Scott’s Constable-like compositional eye is put to good use yet again – it’s a rivetingly lean and energised watch. Mescal’s Lucius wants revenge on Rome, the city which killed his father, sent him into exile as a child, murdered his friends and common-law wife… a long list.
Lucius arguably makes for a less interesting hero than his father, but Mescal is always watchable, with a stocky, swarthy, brooding presence that calls to mind a young Richard Harris or Oliver Reed. And his bod surpasses Crowe’s: the shoulders alone are like freshly baked sourdough loaves.
In this quest for vengeance, Lucius’s chief ally is Denzel Washington’s Macrinus, a quick-eyed schemer who takes him into his stable of gladiators after his capture during the North African campaign. Washington’s relaxed command of this juicy role translates into pure pleasure for the audience: every gesture radiates movie-star ease; every line comes with an unexpected flourish. Unfortunately he’s so good he rather eclipses the rest of the cast, though Tim McInnerny and Alexander Karim are among those to make impressions in fun supporting roles.
Elsewhere, enough stately theatrics ensue that Derek Jacobi simply manifests. (Jacobi’s Gracchus is one of two welcome holdovers from the original, along with Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla.) And then there is whatever Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger are doing as Rome’s fraternal co-rulers, Caracalla and Geta: two coked-up Shoreditch rotters who have somehow ended up wearing togas and running the world’s greatest empire in 200 AD.
Fun is Scott’s primary aim here, from the shadowy plotting that threatens to bring Rome crashing down to the Colosseum showdowns themselves, which range from more intimate man-on-rhinoceros action to a massive naval battle, as two rival teams wage war in shark-infested waters.
Scott has made a spirited defence of the sharks’ inclusion which a historian had previously argued had no basis in reality. Reality notwithstanding, isn’t this like asking a chef to defend the cherries on the top of a cake? If you’re annoyed they’re there, maybe desserts are not for you.
15 cert, 148 mins. In cinemas from Nov 15
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2/5
English