Twenty-four years ago, in the days of my young naivete, I had short-changed Ridley Scott’s Gladiator as an imitation of Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus. Both films, to me at that time, shared elements, and as any youngling venturing into the world of professional cinema, I had been in awe of Kubrick.

Two decades of writing reviews, and an evolving appreciation and understanding of cinema — and a self-restraint to not judge the film on its first, seemingly obvious, close-sighted viewing — has given this critic a newfound appreciation of Scott’s film.

Even in my youth, Gladiator was no half-brained churn-out. It was an epic, in design and thought, clear in its sight and goal, and limber and lean in form. These traits are carried over in a seamless continuation in its sequel written by Napoleon scribe David Scarpa.

The story of Gladiator II, which took a great many years to assemble, is by Scarpa and Peter Craig — the latter also co-wrote The Batman and did the story for Top Gun: Maverick. As writers, they are good company for Scott, whose directorial hand feels deliberately shackled, and perhaps indebted, to the spirit of the first Gladiator. This, by the way, is a good thing.

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II is a well-rounded sequel that does no injustice to its predecessor

Part 2 is a homage — and a rousing one at that, straight from the opening credits and the powerful rendition of Lisa Garrard and Hans Zimmer’s Now We Are Free, the film’s immediately recognisable, immortal theme (the rest of the film is scored by Harry Gregson-Williams, a celebrated composer in his own right who was once Zimmer’s assistant).

The story is simply laid and, as I wrote earlier, seamlessly joins with, and strongly references, the first.

Sixteen years after the death of Maximus (Russell Crowe) and Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), Rome is still corrupt and ever-expanding under the reign of twin half-wit emperors Geta and Caracalla (Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger) — one more boneheaded than the other.

Their general, Acacius (Pedro Pascal), is fierce in battle but gentle in heart. In his first scene, he decimates a port in Numidia (Africa) and later grieves for their dead and their sisters and mothers (the emperors, upon his arrival, order him to vanquish Persia and India).

One of the survivors of the siege is Hanno (Paul Mescal), whose wife was struck down in battle. Revenge fuels his ambition to kill Acacius, which is exploited — a word I use loosely — by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a sly trader in the war business, who stocks gladiators for the impending games at the coliseum in Rome.

Still living in this era is Lucilla (Connie Nielsen, who has aged gracefully) and Senator Gracchus (Derek Jakobi), the two still conspiring for the good of Rome.

Despite what one may assume from the trailers (like I regrettably did), Gladiator II is not aping Gladiator — and one should also discard nitwit musings that the story feels “Bollywood-ish” (one forgets that Bollywood used to, and still tries to, ape Hollywood). I will not say that the story is unpredictable. It is. Yet, the appeal and intelligence are in its very deliberate preference to not stray far from the first film’s tropes and world building, and still make the plot and its turns engaging, especially in the last 40 or so minutes.

I did not feel the 148-minute duration of the film — Scott, Scarpa, Pascal, Nielsen, Washington, and surprisingly Mescal, held the film well enough, along with the production design (by Arthur Max), cinematography (John Mathieson, a regular of Scott’s who also lensed Gladiator), the editing (Sam Restivo and Claire Simpson, the latter of whom won an Oscar for Platoon) and, of course, the music.

Gladiator II is a well-rounded movie that looks the part and concludes a long-lingering story (albeit, one that one didn’t know was left hanging), without turning any aspect of it into a mockery.

Released by HKC and Paramount, Gladiator II is rated PG, despite some gruesome deaths that include blood and computer-generated animals

Published in Dawn, ICON, December 1st, 2024