Gladiator II (2024): My Honest Review

[ManOnFire]

Wassup, GaG? Back at it with another honest movie review, and while you’re here don’t forget to hit that Like button and subscribe lol

Alright, so I am very late to the party again and watched Gladiator II for the first time last week and - SPOILER ALERT - I will be detailing parts of the movie and the ending, so if you have not seen it but are still trying to, I’m gonna tell you to stop reading right now unless you don’t care to spoil it. So here we go.

First a re-cap from Gladiator (2000)

For those who did not see it, I will briefly explain: in Gladiator, we see general Maximus (Russell Crowe) refuse to show allegiance to Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) who kills his father, Marcus Aurelius, who did not feel that his son was fit to rule. Commodus names himself emperor and Maximus’ wife and son are executed, and he is thrown into gladiator prison, where he rises as a star for winning his battles.

Commodus has a sister Lucilla and her son Lucius, but Commodus needs an heir of his own and asks her, which I think he wanted her to sleep with him for (pretty gross). In the end Maximus has a final fight with Commodus, who he beats badly, and kills. And then he himself dies from a wound from Commodus and goes to Elysium with his wife and son. If you are someone who is not very familiar with Roman history or mythology, this film might get a little confusing for you but shouldn’t, as it stays on topic.

Gladiator II (2025)

In Gladiator II we see Lucius living in north Africa, who hides his royal lineage, as he goes by the name Hanno. His wife dies in a battle with Roman forces led by Acacius (our favorite Mandalorian Pedro Pascal, and the second movie he did with Denzel by the way), who defeats the north Africans and conquers the region. “Hanno” is taken back to Rome and is owned by the manipulative power broker Macrinus (Denzel Washington).

Just like Russell Crowe, “Hanno” is a rising star in the Colosseum who only wants one thing: to kill Acacius for the death of his wife. Macrinus promises he will give him what he wants if he keeps winning fights. Now Acacius is already married to Lucilla at this point, and they both are working to overthrow the twin emperors, which Macrinus already suspects. And in turn, she also suspects that “Hanno” is her son Lucius. Macrinus influences the emperors to arrest her and Acacius for conspiring to overthrow them, which the brothers do, and decide to put Acacius in the arena after Macrinus talks them down from crucifying them.

Lucius wants to know what Macrinus’ real name is, seeing that he is obviously from Africa and not a European Roman, but tells him “you will never know.” Fast forward to the end, Macrinus manipulates one of the brothers into killing the other, and then manipulates the last brother into making him a top advisor. From here Macrinus can do a lot of damage in his role, which he does, authorizing the final battle between Lucius and Acacius. Acacius is taken down with arrows by the Romans when he is about to stir an uprising in the arena for the people to serve Lucius. The uprising begins, Macrinus quietly kills the last brother, then kills Lucilla before her son can free her. He flees on horse out of Rome but is faced with the Roman legions marching to the gates as his own troops are coming to meet them. Then there is the last fight between him and Lucius, who is victorious and goes on to unite Rome.

The characters

An ever present issue with so many of today’s films is that I find myself really not liking any of the characters in particular. Nothing about them really makes me love, root for, relate to, or want to see them happy. Few movie characters carry any realism in their roles, in both screenplay and body language. They are either overacting, too dry, aren’t anyone you particularly care about, or maybe even struggling themselves with the scripts. And it was the same in the case of Lucius. He was the hero, but I didn’t really care about him. I found myself more curious about Ravi his doctor than Lucius himself. Pedro was good, but I didn’t care about him either. In the first Gladiator, I cared about Russell Crowe, and I loved Joaquin’s dramatic sociopathic acting, as he is a guy who grew up with a lot of acting experience.

Denzel was fairly decent, although it still seemed to me that he struggled a bit with that role, because it’s something he’s never done before: a black man in ancient Rome. So maybe he was still trying to find the right temperature or footing, and the only very good scene to me was his last words with Lucilla. The character of Macrinus who is a manipulator and good at finding things out is terrific, I have no issues with that, but I think it would’ve been better to use guys like Idris Elba or David Oleyowo because they are British, and British actors tend to be much more theatrical and convincing than Americans, and they understand ancient Rome better. I think they would’ve had no problem melting into the role of Macrinus.

The only character I felt anything for was Lucilla, because she was the only remnant from the first movie to carry into this one, so she was familiar and gave you a sense of still being concerned about her concerns and wanting her to see her son again as a grown man. And of course Connie Nielsen still looked fine as fuck for her age (she’s 59!) and really hot in those sleeveless robes. You guys knew I had to do it!😝

My score

As of now Gladiator II has 70% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was not a terrible movie, but does not match up to the first Gladiator. It really did not even need to exist at all and we would've been just fine if it was never made. Even the CGI with the rhino and baboons in the Colosseum was not good, feeling a lot like Anakin and Padme fighting for their lives in the Geonosian arena in Attack of the Clones. The CGI in the first Gladiator was better than this. But thank you, Denzel, for holding off crucifixion lol, as a man of faith I do not take that lightly. My overall score: 3 ⅕ out of 5 stars.

Take care

[NicholasRedone]

Spoiler alert ; because on YouTube I saw and or read on Wikipedia the final fight scenes, I was disappointed the way "Macrinus" is brutally ended as a character. I mean not exactly an uplifting movie to watch if one thought "oh look how progressive this film is and showing something different, a fictional African man in Ancient Rome and it is legitimate because Northern Africa ain't that far from reality of being close to Rome etc etc the empire covered vast territory etc etc,

Anyways. I never really watched the first Gladiator. The films I feel are just too far removed from my day to day life. Lol 😆 and I am glad how society isn't still living in the sand and the dust

[NicholasRedone]

For a modern city dwelling me I mean as an audience man

[ManOnFire]

I know a lot of people probably thought the second movie was "woke" but in reality ancient Rome did have black people beCAUSE of its conquests into Africa, so it's not unthinkable that Denzel could be a black businessman in that age.

[NicholasRedone]

@ManOnFire had Islam not spread to Africa / North Africa especially ; and while there's still secularism and secular Christianity there to date, I feel northern Africa or North Africa is a wasted opportunity on the world stage for economic development (land for factories, industrial parks everywhere and roads lol) 🛣️🙃

[NicholasRedone]

@ManOnFire and thankfully most of Africa from past colonisation speaks English

[NicholasRedone]

@ManOnFire I guess time will tell. Some "non Muslim" Egyptian women even look very attractive being like "Rami Malek white yellow skinned" however - the downside is Coptic Christian can be just as strict as orthodox aka - sometimes I think while it's seems ironic, Catholic counties or Protestant countries, tend to be the most days to days "lax" about religious observance by the book lol 😂 😆 there's too many countries with too many strict religions or strict cultures lol 😂😆

[Dongie]

Ok, I can't recall Russell wanting to scrub up Connie and yep she is looking hotter than before but I love older babes. Yeah!
Did Ridley not do this Pic?
So I've watched one film with Denzel as the bad guy. Training Day and he was great! The story sounds fascinating and as usual your disection is very good. I want to see it now.
Definitely want to see the 59 year old Cougar in robes.

[ManOnFire]

Lol. If you love Matures like me then you will be in for a real treat with Connie, she was pretty hot. Yes, Ridley did this one. You may appreciate it more than I did.

[Dongie]

Hehe, possibly. I much prefer Denzel as the good guy, but he was VERY, VERY good with the upstart - what's his name.

[ManOnFire]

He was better in The Equalizer movies.

Macrinus.

[Anonymous]

I felt more or less the same. I think Denzel did his best but the script was bad. Hollywood just doesn't care anymore, they recycled a movie from 25 years ago without the great writing. Hollywood keeps making the same movies over and over again, worst thing is that if they wanted to make a movie about the Roman empire there are centuries of stories and characters.

[ManOnFire]

Exactly! Hollywood just keeps recycling and it's making us all sick and they refuse to see it. I am under the belief that the scripts and stories have become so much worse because the creators are under the influence of marijuana. Have you seen Die Alone? That was also a really bad movie and felt like somebody wrote that on a weed trip.

[DishLady]

Great read as always. :)

[ProbablyClueless]

Your review lines up pretty well with others I've read. They all said that it was a solid movie, but that the story is written so that you have to compare it to the first Gladiator, which is a master class in great storytelling. And that's just a ridiculously tall order that we can't and shouldn't be upset it didn't meet.

That's kind of how I feel about the game Elden Ring. It is an objectively solid game, but you need to compare it to other games in it's genre, and that's why it somewhat underwhelmed me. When you compare Elden Ring with a game like Breath of The Wild, Elden Ring simply didn't do anything as well as Breath of the Wild. But Breath of the Wild is one of the greatest open world games of all time.

So yeah... neither Gladiator 2, nor Elden Ring are nearly as good as technical masterpiece works of art that they had to follow. But they're both impressive offerings in their own right. I really can't blame them for that.

[Shiprex]

I found it hilarious how they managed to get a 20m deep pool into a sand floored colosseum WITH sharks and all as well as be able to accelerate a 20 tonne wooden sailing ship powered by oars up to "ramming speed" in the same colosseum to break the keel and rise up onto the deck of another ship.
Not as good as the first but worthy of a watch and perhaps cult status for the next generation of mind emptied phone addicts.

[ManOnFire]

In ancient Rome they actually did fill the Colosseum with water for naval battles as well. That part is factual.

[Shiprex]

The sharks though

[AviatorTom]

I watched Gladiator II. As a standalone movie, it's pretty good. Like most sequels, though, it's nowhere near as good as the original. Frankly I was disappointed.

[BDRick]

I mean, I know they’re gonna make a third one for it to be a trilogy, but to each his own

[ManOnFire]

Okay, now I did NOT know that. It needs to stop here.

[BDRick]

Exactly. I mean the first was alright if you think so but I didn’t even try to see the second lol

[robertsilver]

To be very honest, I would love to watch this movie whenever I will free.

[ManOnFire]

Go for it. You might appreciate it more than I did.

[McLlovin]

I can respect it.

[ManOnFire]

Did you see it?

[McLlovin]

Yes. For me i gave it a 7 on imdb. Because i liked the action. Reading what you wrote i can definitely see what your saying

[Sal_Monella]

I will watch it on streaming.

[ManOnFire]

Let us know what you think when you're done.

[Sal_Monella]

I'll watch G1 first.

[Dongie]

Damn Sal, you've not seen the first one? You are in for a treat.

[ManOnFire]

@Dongie Yeah I thought this dude had already seen it lol