Gladiator II

15 | ★★★★✩

Director Ridley Scott’s sequel to his own classic swashbuckler of nearly a quarter of a century ago, surpasses low expectations of anyone who has seen the poster and concluded that this is merely another Hollywood boot-filling exercise riding on the back of past glories.

The film’s opening spectacle of the Roman fleet alone induces jaw-slackening awe as it rows towards the shore of Numidia “last free city of Africa Nova”. At the helm is is Pedro Pascal’s Marcus Acacius, a reluctant soldier sick to death of being a walking mass casualty weapon. Colonialism is a particularity bad idea when the conquering is done in the name of his current rulers, Rome’s childish twin tyrants Geta and Caracalla.

After the smiting is done Paul Mescal’s Lucius, who’s spilt blood is – spoiler alert – much more Roman than his role as Numidia’s finest soldier would suggest, has seen his archer wife killed in battle by an arrow, and hallucinated her crossing the Styx.

This ignites all the rage he needs to cause Rome’s downfall which psychologically speaking is a bit of stretch. But his rise from prisoner of war, to slave, to gladiator with the promise that if he survives long enough he will win his freedom (Rome’s levelling up policy) prompts several bold as brass set pieces in the Coliseum that are worth the price of ticket. In one, the arena is flooded and infested with sharks as two galleons, one captained by Lucius, re-enact a sea battle.

With his Brando profile Mescal has the face to sink a thousand such ships or, as he does in an earlier battle watched by the braying hordes, despatch a CGI monster monkey by biting his way to victory.

Mescal is a worthy inheritor of whatever crown Russell Crowe has worn since the original movie. Mescal is as brooding, and I would say even more watchable. And as far as this spectacle will allow, he is believable too even if his transformation form slave to war lord is a somewhat join-the-dots affair.

The one story here that is actually genuinely compelling is that of Denzel Washington’s mysterious Macrinus, Rome’s Dominic Cummings. Macrinus runs the Gladiator school, a job of huge influence in the empire. In Mescal’s Lucius he sees the talent that can effect his own ambitions.

Washington delivers the Shakespearean heft he brought to Joel Coen’s Macbeth. It is the performance of the movie and argues he would have been a more compelling main protagonist.

A Gladiator III is hard to imagine and would be easy to ignore if it happens even with Mescal. But a second outing for Macrinus that delved into the power-hungry politician’s past would be a tempting prospect.