Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by David Scarpa
A new pox on our houses, following inflation and shrinkflation, is the concept of enshittification, which is when the goods we enjoy become markedly worse while price stays the same or even increases. This usually happens when companies “optimize for cost” and disregard everything else and the consequences are obvious: The quality deteriorates, customer service disappears, variety shrinks. It’s a miserable experience on the whole.
We’ve noticed it in grocery aisles and on store shelves, and now the time’s come for us to experience it on the big screen. Gladiator II, Ridley Scott’s follow up to his own film from 2000, is cinematic enshittification. Worse in every way, yet desperate to remind you of its predecessor, Gladiator is John F. Kennedy, U.S. president and American icon, while Gladiator II is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., circus freak and ghoul.
To start, an obvious disincentive to watch Gladiator II is that you’ve already seen it.
Following the events of Gladiator, a power vacuum forms in Rome. Sixteen years pass, and two deranged twins ascend somehow, ruling as dual emperors and plunging the once-great empire into corruption and ruin.
They’re warmongers. General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) leads their armies, and when he conquers a nondescript African stronghold, one of its soldiers (Paul Mescal) is sold into slavery. His fighting prowess catches the eye of Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a big fish in one of Rome’s outlying small ponds, who takes this formidable fighter with a secretive past under his wing and together they head for the Colosseum: the newly minted gladiator hellbent on revenge against Acacius, and Macrinus with greater things in mind.
Gladiator II gets in the groove dug by its predecessor and never really leaves, sticking with the same general plot points from start to finish only now it has turned the movie into a crass amusement park based on its namesake. I mean that literally. At one point, the Colosseum is filled with water, sharks, and ships, and turned into something resembling WaterWorld at Universal Studios. The crazy part is staged naval fights like this actually happened, but the choreography, editing and cinematography make the scene look like lazy slop. This scene isn’t alone.
Its symptomatic of the film as a whole, this emphasis on boneheaded spectacle. Everything is just a little louder and dumber, more brash and exaggerated. Gladiator was still an action movie, but it did have a tortured heart and burned with anger. Not so this time around.
Despite the brouhaha, everything’s watered down. Paul Mescal, a fine actor, is not Russell Crowe and he’s definitely not a leader of men. How could he be? Crowe was 36 when he led armies as Maximus, and Mescal is 28 here. With his doleful eyes and shy demeanor, he looks like he’d struggle to lead a JV basketball team. As Emperor Geta, Joseph Quinn acts out some belligerent one-dimensional nonsense, and alongside him Fred Hechinger doesn’t fare much better as Emperor Caracalla, a snivelling wart on his older brother’s back.
All are pardoned to some extent based on what they have to work with, but Denzel Washington does show them up, as he knows what he has on his hands, and acts accordingly. He makes like a mongoose in this den of vipers that is Rome, ducking, weaving, teasing and toying before going for the kill. Washington’s gravitas and willingness to act the fool makes the performance.
There has been enough money poured into the movie to make everything look convincing, at least the parts that don’t literally jump the shark, but Gladiator II is merely an 80s action flick dressed up. It features the same exaggerated violence, obvious plot, and one-dimensional characters as these movies, but also an uncharming self-importance.
Gladiator II is reheated Gladiator, but the ingredients are worse, and as a result, the flavor’s not what you remembered and it almost taints the memory of what was.
Mikkel Frederiksen 