Gladiator 2

Gladiator 2 is getting mixed reviews from audiences, and not doing too terribly well at the box office. But as we know by now box office success means nothing and I don’t trust the general public's opinion on cinema. So we watched it and though it is nowhere near the quality and influence of the original film it is still a well crafted and enjoyable watch.

We quickly build to the action and establish who the main characters are. There is not an overwhelming amount of dialogue in act 1 which we know I love. Action progressing the plot will always be better than expositional dialogue.

We have a textbook case of fridging right away, not like I expected anything more from a Ridley Scott film but I'm gonna call it out anyway.

The film looks beautiful. Ridley Scott always has incredible visuals. This is pretty consistent across all of his films.

Our main character was purchased to be a gladiator, I suppose that's what really kicks off act 2. They are basically framing it to them as an opportunity to free themselves.

Denzel Washington is incredible, he's really the perfect casting choice for pretty much anything and everything.

The proposition is that he fights for an opportunity to fight Acacius, getting revenge for his wife's death. So if anyone was wondering yes that is textbook fridging.

Fight scenes break up the politics at a pretty regular pace. The pacing of this film in general is pretty good, there hasn’t been anything that has dragged the plot down at all.

The cadence of the dialogue is great, as someone who is firmly planted in her Greek/Roman history phase for possibly the whole rest of my life I appreciate how well crafted it is. Unfortunately, it is only delivered as if reading an epic by a few characters, making the immersion in the film inconsistent.

We do have some Julius Caesar like plans going on between the general and the senate planning to overthrow the emperors at the end of the games. Which of course gets leaked to the wrong people.

Lucious is the son of our original gladiator, which I suppose makes sense as this movie is supposed to be just a generation later. I feel like that actually raises the expectations for the film; because the first one is so iconic bringing forth a completely different bloodline might actually have benefitted the theme. Otherwise it looks like only this one family is capable of affecting change. It is the same problem the star wars sequels ran into, making Rey anyone that was tied to the original films when it would have been more meaningful to make her a nobody. Anyone in the universe can be special and capable of remarkable things. Change and story doesn’t come from one specific bloodline. By making the main character his son it also just makes the film feel a little more repetitive than it needed to be.

Now if they wanted to tell a story about a long lost son fighting to get back to Rome to see his grandfather's dream fulfilled and restore his fathers legacy then that would have been a really great angle to take. But that's just not the story they were telling.

That said the familial tie gave the battle between Lucius and Acacius far more emotional weight and informed Lucious’ motivation for leading the revolt.

That said momma dying was entirely unnecessary and furthered the fridging problem. Killing her in the exact same way his wife died as an extra little push for him was…a choice. We had already established loss, the gruesomeness of war and all that so her death actually served no real purpose and was simply a bad and sexist decision, but again, a Ridley Scott movie so I suppose ill temper my expectations.

Overall the film was good. It did one of the best things that a sequel can do which is stand on its own. The original Gladiator is not necessary for understanding or enjoying this movie. However Gladiator is an iconic movie in cinema history which inherently makes the sequel a bit of a let down. I give it a solid 8/10 but it's nothing groundbreaking or impactful.