Gladiator II Review
Glicked weekend happened this past weekend, I was able to watch both movies yesterday. I reviewed Wicked which means today I’m reviewing Gladiator II. The sequel to one of Ridley Scott’s most iconic movies that’s releasing 24 years later. What did I think about the movie? Where do I fall with the movie? Let’s get started!
NOTE: Before I start talking about Gladiator II I wanna start off by saying…I haven’t seen the original movie. I know, I know I probably should have watched it before I watched this movie. But, I wasn’t able to, it’s not streaming anywhere so I went in not seeing the original. It’s one of those movies that I know I should see at some point, I should watch it if Ridley Scott actually makes a third film, that’s probably when I’ll watch it and review it.
The Good
The first thing about this movie that stood out to me was its big epic action sequences. All throughout the movie, it’s filled with these gigantic shots filled with incredible action sequences. The movie starts off with these big action sequences with Pedro Pascal’s character and that’s one of the largest scale sequences of the movie. Throughout the movie, it’s finding ways to both top it and not top it. It starts off with a bang, and every sequence after that is just as memorable and fantastic. Ridley Scott has a lot of flaws as a director, his directing career over the last several years hasn’t been the best. Watching this movie and watching Napoleon last year, you realize that he’s great at working with large scale action sequences. You feel the scope, scale, and size of everything going on. There’s hundreds and hundreds of extras and background people making it into these big sequences. But you also know what our characters are trying to do and there’s always a personal stake in what’s going on. Whether that’s the big epic action sequence at the beginning or some of the stuff in the back half of the movie there’s both big scale action and personal stakes that work really well.
Also I thought the story for this movie was really well done and great. Like I said, I haven’t seen the original movie but I was still able to connect with the themes and the arcs for the characters. One thing that I hadn’t really heard from people going into this movie was that it takes a lot of inspiration from Hamlet, I don’t wanna spoil anything but there’s a lot of the moments that remind you of Hamlet. Pulling from Shakespeare, mainly Hamlet is always great source material and mixing that with the Roman Empire just creates something very cool. Especially, with the arc they give Paul Mescal’s character and what they have him do, fits with these themes and ideas about legacy and taking back what’s yours. One thing that surprised me is that the back half of the movie goes in directions that I wasn’t expecting. Once again without spoiling anything, the action sequence that happens around halfway through the movie I thought was the finale, but it wasn’t. After that sequence ended, I really wasn’t sure where this movie was going and what the third act was going to look like and play out. But I absolutely dug where this movie went in the back half of the movie, it was very strong and you felt this epic nature to everything taking place.
Speaking of everything taking place, the production value for the movie is simply fantastic. At the very least, this movie will get Oscar nominations for its production design, costume, sound, and more (which we’ll talk about later). It does a great job of taking you to a time and a place and it adds to this epic nature of the movie. From the very beginning of the movie, when it has these shots of Rome you feel like you’re in Rome with these characters. That’s what makes this movie great, you feel the epic nature of what’s going on and part of that goes back to it taking you to a time and a place. This movie’s budget is a bit unclear, at one point it was $165 million. Because of the strikes, the budget inflated a good bit, now the movie’s budget is about $280 million. No matter what the budget is, it looks incredible and the production design goes a long way with that. You also get some great costumes, that once again makes you feel like you’re in Rome with these characters. I don’t know how many Oscar nominations this movie gets, it at least needs nominations in the technical categories, it’s pretty fantastic on those levels.
Speaking of that, the score for the movie was absolutely fantastic. I know that Hans Zimmer scored the original film, that’s probably one of the films that really made him big in Hollywood. Zimmer didn’t return to score this film because of Dune: Part II, they got Harry Gregson-Williams who has worked with Ridley Scott a number of times over the years and I think he did a great job. He makes the score feel big and epic, it plays at the right moments where it helps get you amped up in the bigger sequences that makes you motivated to do something in the fight even though you can’t because you’re just watching the movie. It plays in the quieter moments and they equally work as well, the score is one of the best of the year. And once again, is absolutely worthy of an Oscar nomination.
Finally, the cast and performances all around are pretty fantastic. There’s been a lot of debate whether or not the lead actor, Paul Mescal was miscast and were comparing him to Russell Crowe. As somebody who hasn’t seen the original movie, I liked him a lot in this role that could change if I see the original movie. But I thought he had the physicality that the character needed, there’s a number of shirtless scenes with his character and clearly he went to the gym for months to train. He’s able to act opposite other actors that have been in Hollywood longer than he has. He’s holding his own, I thought he did a very good job. The one that everybody is talking about is Denzel Washington who clearly is having a lot of fun and I loved what they did with his character. It’s kind of tricky to talk about without going into the spoilers, but they give him a lot to do that make you have a lot of complicated feelings about him all throughout the movie. He doesn’t provide humor in the movie, but his character is given a more livelier personality so he’s more fun in the movie then some of the other actors. I wish I could tell you more about him, but it would spoil some stuff in the back half of the movie. People are saying that Denzel is worthy of an Oscar nomination, he 100% is and right now I think he should win. But everybody in the movie is very good, I liked what they did with Pedro Pascal. They created a very interesting dynamic with Mescal’s character. Pedro is just a very solid performer that’s great in everything he’s in.
The Bad
The first thing that comes to mind here is parts of the movie that feel like a typical modern day blockbuster. In so many modern day blockbusters, there’s this feeling that you need to go bigger and bigger with everything. Some of that provides for some very fun sequences like I mentioned, the opening of the movie being the big stand for it all. But you also get sequences like this colosseum filled with water with sharks in there, it’s a cool visual and probably a cool thought that Ridley Scott had but I don’t know if it actually makes sense or added anything to the movie. And it feels like a mandated sequence by the studio that they needed to have something crazy in there. There are some smaller character moments that happen in there, but I’m not sure if having sharks and water in the colosseum to convey those character moments. It also strains from logic and credibility as to how they get sharks in there, because back in those days it was probably near impossible to get sharks. How did they find that much water to put in the colosseum? As the sequence is playing out, your mind is asking all of these questions you’re thinking about all of these things and not fully paying attention to what’s actually happening in the sequence.
Also, there’s some stuff that happens with our two emperors in the back half of the movie that makes sense in the context of the story. But with so many characters in the movie, they’re not really focused on until the back half of the movie. The elements with their characters fall a bit flat, because they don’t necessarily have the weight that maybe they should. I don’t mind what they did with the characters, I think it makes sense in the context of the story and it provides some gnarly moments that I wasn’t expecting. But I wish they were more prominent in the first half to make their scenes in the back half more memorable.
Final Thoughts: Overall, as somebody who didn’t really know what to expect going into this movie, I thought Gladiator II was a really good movie. And it had a lot of great elements in there, that made it a fun movie to see on the big screen. There’s a lot of big epic action sequences that instantly put you into this world and you never feel like you leave this world until the credits roll. Some people have been disappointed with this movie, as somebody who has emotional attachment to the original movie I thought this was a rock solid movie that worked on its own. If you’re a fan of the original Gladiator, you’ll probably enjoy this movie.
The Score: 8.8/10 (B+)
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