DDoes the accuracy of a film set in the past actually matter? When a historian noticed errors in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, the director brusquely told him to “get a life.” But separating fact from fiction, and a plausible storyline from pure fantasy, is part of the fun of watching a historical film. Sorry, Ridley: you’re just as likely to stop the incoming pedantry on Gladiator II as you are to successfully defend yourself against a pack of (unlikely) bloodthirsty baboons.

Weeks before Gladiator II opened, the trailer had been the subject of scrutiny for its historical accuracy. In fact, the main culprit in this was less a matter of historical errors than a crime against common sense: no, rhinos cannot be tamed, broken and ridden like horses. Could the Colosseum really be filled with water and become the scene of a mock naval battle?

Actually, it’s a flop. Presumably such an event occurred at the opening of the Colosseum in AD 80, but it seems more likely that such extravagances would have been staged in another, more suitable location. There is nothing in the remains of the building to indicate that it could have been flooded and kept watertight. One thing’s for sure, though: the wealthy Romans may have done all sorts of things with elaborate seawater ponds (the magnate Crassus famously kept an eel as a pet and supposedly cried when it died), but harvesting and introducing human-killing sharks into the aforementioned fake eel naval battles were beyond them.

Five minutes for a trailer: two and a half hours for the entire film. It’s hard to know where to start when you’re presented with the full, lush, epic spread of historical inaccuracy that Gladiator II provides. One of the funniest moments is provided by Denzel Washington’s Macrinus (yes, a real person from Mauretania, but not a former slave – and he eventually succeeded Caracalla as emperor). At one point this wonderful camp creation is seen maliciously sipping what appears to be a cup of coffee (not for about a millennium) or tea (China only at this point) in a cafe (there weren’t any) while reading the morning newspaper (again, only China produced paper, and of course nothing close to a newspaper).

The gladiator games themselves: there is something wonderful in Gladiator II where all hell breaks loose in both the audience and the arena. It’s great to watch. But Roman historians Mary Beard and Keith Hopkins, in their book The Colosseum, think the barking horde of reputation is a myth: the real crowd might have been more of an audience for modern opera, with much less gladiator blood. then spilled into the movies. (To be fair, I’ve seen crowds at the Royal Opera House screaming for blood, but nothing really rioting yet.)

As for Caracalla, played as an enjoyably goofy sybarite by Fred Hechinger, he really was the Roman emperor, and yes, he really did rule alongside his brother Geta – but only briefly until the former had the latter murdered. (Syphilis, by the way, is alluded to in Gladiator II – it is unlikely to have arrived in Europe much before the great smallpox epidemic of 1495, although its origins are a matter of debate.) In Scott’s film the siblings are rather peculiar creations – somewhere between Johnny Rotten, the Harkonnens from the original Dune, and the most effeminate figures you could find in a Lawrence Alma-Tadema painting, their sniveling effeminacy disturbingly juxtaposed against the masculine virtues of Paul Mescal’s gladiator. They are pale and red-haired, although in real life they are the sons of a Libyan-born father, Septimius Severus, and a Syrian mother, Julia Domna. (In other ways, the film is rightly invested in highlighting the diversity of Roman life, its people drawn from across the Mediterranean world.)

The real Caracalla was a bearded, tough-looking warrior, probably without eyeliner, who barely arrived in Rome and spent most of his reign at war and/or slaughtering people. He financed the construction of a huge bath complex in Rome and, significantly, passed a law that made free men citizens throughout the empire. He was at the helm for over 19 years before he was assassinated. His mother, Julia Domna, is one of the most recognizable women of the Roman Empire, thanks to a very distinctive hairstyle of horizontal, helmet-like waves, immortalized in sculpture, coins, pottery and the famous ‘Berlin tondo’.

The latter is a rare painting showing her, her husband and their children. Geta’s face was scratched out after he was removed from the throne, just as his name was erased from inscriptions throughout the empire. According to several Roman sources, Domna wields considerable power in Rome. Exactly the kind of scenario that could have potentially made for an interesting storyline…

And that’s unfortunately part of the point. Gladiator I is a classic film for many reasons, one of which is its great plot. I don’t believe for a second that Marcus Aurelius was secretly plotting to reintroduce the Roman Republic – but the idea worked as a storyline for the film, not least because there was a real stream of Roman thought that looked back wistfully on the ‘good old time’. days” before one-man rule. Gladiator II is a kind of shaky redrawing of Gladiator I, clumsily pasted over the template of its predecessor.

Because it’s so determined to follow the beats of the earlier film, it quickly becomes obsolete. Poor Paul Mescal does a great job with his fight scenes, but otherwise struggles with a character whose motivations don’t seem to add up. You can overlook a lot of historical nonsense if the story pulls you in powerfully; if not, doubts arise about everything else.

My pedant’s expectations were raised in the first few minutes, when Mescal uttered an actual quote from the author Tacitus. (“They make a desert and call it peace” – a telling phrase attributed by the historian to the Caledonian leader Calgacus, albeit in a different historical period.) After that, at least for me, it all goes downhill. Go see Gladiator II for the menacing rhinos, the severed limbs squirting blood (if that’s your thing) and the fantastic crowd scenes. For a great movie, stick with Gladiator I.