Since Gladiator is one of my favorite movies of all time, I was hesitant to even see Gladiator 2 because I didn’t really want the original to be tainted by a disappointing sequel.

Instead, I was… overwhelmed, I think. I think Gladiator 2 has some good aspects, and those aspects are called Denzel Washington, but the design and structure of this movie is so bizarre that I wanted to talk about it with other people who have seen it. Spoilers follow, of course.

• The main problem I have is that at least the entire first half of the film not only sets up a very Maximus-esque path for Hanno, it’s a very strange dance about his identity, where we, the audience, clearly seem to know that Hanno is Lucius, but it is unclear whether He know. Then, once you’ve seen the first film, it’s very clear that Lucius is actually Maximus’ son, which the film treats as some sort of big reveal (at one point during my pre-film reporting the studio emailed me to remind me that the identity of Lucius’ father was officially a “mystery.” Ultimately, we learn that Lucius knew he was Lucius, but didn’t know he was Maximus’ son, and the whole thing is kind of a mess. figuring out what the public should know, what the audience should know. be surprised by the same questions that exist for the characters in the film.
• In this two and a half hour film, virtually no time is spent on anything happened to Lucius for the past 16 years. Was it actually the plan that Lucilla would send him away and… never see him again? The movie made it seem like we were going to see some sort of shipwreck or disaster that distracts him from whatever the plan was, but instead all we hear is him wandering around and being absorbed into his African community without further elaboration. Then he’s mad at his mother for sending him away to save his life? It’s a good question why she never went looking for him, but the film doesn’t really answer this, or what the plan here was originally supposed to be, or what might have gone wrong along the way.

• This wasn’t necessarily a bad plot point, but one of the most shocking scenes in the film is strangely shot where Denzel’s Macrinus kills Emperor Geta from behind Emperor Caracalla, but the way it’s shot makes it look like he kills both. them, which makes it a bit confusing when Caracalla appears in the next scene. I don’t know if that was purposely confusing, or if it was just poorly filmed.
• A lot of this movie was spoiled by the basic concept and trailer. Aside from the whole “we clearly know who Paul Mescal is from the beginning” issue, the fact that Pedro Pascal’s Marcus Acacius is described in the synopsis as a “disgraced general” and we see him fighting in the arena against Lucius all the air out. of the film’s plot about overthrowing the emperors. We know it will fail from the moment we hear that the plan has come to fruition. Likewise, I’ve never seen a character who was more obviously going to die than Lucius’ wife Arishat, literally fifteen seconds after she was introduced. Large parts of the story are broadcast so loudly here that there are few surprises.
• One surprise, and the best part of the film, is when Macrinus’ plan to seize power is revealed, which admittedly I didn’t see coming. At least not to the extent that he effectively takes control of the entire empire. But this too ultimately had a pretty big downside. If Macrinus had simply…not ridden ahead of the army and done this unnecessary 1v1 battle against Lucius, he could have just stayed behind and let his army crush the others, as it seems less likely that Lucius’ football speech would work in high school. in that context (does the enemy army only believe his word that he is the prince of Rome at that moment?). It was also out of character for Macrinus to throw himself into danger and engage in physical combat with a gladiator champion when his whole thing was being a puppeteer in the shadows.

Most of this didn’t work for me. Denzel saved a lot of the movie, but the suspension of disbelief only goes so far when it comes to these storylines, and this storyline just didn’t make sense or was presented confusingly at best. It’s not the original, not even close.

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