Gladiator II Is a Lavish, Empty Spectacle
When Gladiator hit theaters in the summer of 2000, there were no post-credits scenes teasing sequels. There were no plans for a Gladiator expanded universe. The very idea of a post-credits scene or an expanded universe would have been strange, as the superhero movie boom was still in its primordial stage, and neither of those concepts had found their way into moviegoing and moviemaking parlance. The first Gladiator was just a movie—a crowd-pleasing, sword and sandals epic for the modern age. It had a beginning, a middle, and even an end. It won Best Picture, and everyone went on with their lives. There wasn’t supposed to be another one.Â
And yet, now, 24 years later, there is, somehow, for some reason, another one.Â
The question how is easy enough: Director Ridley Scott decided to make another one.Â
Why is a harder question to answer: Scott is in his 80s, but he’s made 10 movies over the last dozen years, several of which have revisited themes and settings from his earlier work. Maybe, like so many men, he’s obsessed with the Roman empire? Perhaps he had more to say on the subject of premodern gladiators?Â
Gladiator II is certainly more Gladiator: The action scenes are grander, more ambitious, emboldened by advances in special effects and Ridley Scott’s late-career confidence as a director. The first Gladiator gave viewers a man fighting a computer-generated tiger with a Roman short sword. The sequel gives viewers a gang of chained-up gladiators fighting off wild monkeys with nothing but chains. There’s a sequence where a rhinoceros is ridden into a gladiator pit like a medieval tank, and another where the Colosseum is flooded so that miniature boats can stage a water battle, complete with sharks.Â
But more Gladiator is not necessarily better Gladiator.
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