Are you not entertained? Somewhat…

For those of you who think about the Roman Empire more than once a week, ask yourself – how often is it inspired by, or at least flavoured by Ridley Scott’s epic Gladiator? For me, it sits on a list of maybe 10 films in a league of their own for pure big-screen spectacle. It’s sacred, an article of cultic faith, and as such should be protected from prying hands, no matter how well-intentioned.

In fairness to Ridley, he held off on sequel temptation and script offers of varying quality (including one notorious proposed plot where Maximus was to return from Elysium on orders from the gods to free Rome) for a quarter of a century. And now in his mid-80s, this director of a prestigious back catalogue, winner of countless awards – has picked a successor for his Roman opus. But is it worthy of walking in the same Colosseum sands?

Gladiator II, now in cinemas across the UAE, boasts quite the cast list – Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi reprise their roles as Lucilla and Gracchus respectively, but other than that it’s pretty much a brand new Legion.

Paul Mescal leads the charge, he plays Lucius – the once hypothesised result of the illegitimate union of Lucilla and Maximus (Russell Crowe) that is now, save for a Jerry Springer paternity test reveal, all but confirmed. We’re told in this sequel that after the events of the first movie, Lucius the child fled Imperial lands to avoid retribution when his uncle and presumed father Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) was slain by his biological father in the Colosseum (see? Ripe for the Springer show).

Lucius finds sanctuary in Africa where, now fully grown, he’s captured by the advancing colonial Roman forces, headed up by ethical general, Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal). As a side note, this pairing of Pascal and Mescal will almost certainly fuel an entirely new group of people to dwell on thoughts about the Roman Empire but, I suspect, in a very different way. With his captors unaware of his royal providence, Lucius is brought back to Rome a slave – a ransom to fill the general coffers. His skills in combat are spotted by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), slave master and gladiator sports agent – and Lucius is thrown into the world of competitive arena disembowling.

The imperial heir that became a slave, the slave that became a gladiator, a gladiator that is now on a trajectory to defy an empire. And if this all starts to feel a bit familiar, it’s because this movie really is a bit of a soft reboot of the original – of the sorts that other recent movies, tasked with following up on cherished classics after a substantial age gap (Top Gun: Maverick, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker), have resorted to. Perhaps out of fear from straying too far from the source material and risking the fury of disenfranchised fans. Or maybe you just don’t mess with a winning formula. Whatever the reason, the fact this movie is an echo (hopefully not one of a series that continues into eternity) of its progenitor – is simultaneously its greatest strength and its biggest weakness.

It’s a good film, with stunning performances, and some truly epic scenes. It’s just simply not as powerful as the original, and only partly because we already know how the card trick works. Frontrunner in the phalanx of these faults is the dialogue, Gladiator II feels far less poetic, less quotable, less meme-able, and at times so desperate to resonate that it’s irkingly awkward. Heavy work is made of the, what’s the opposite of foreshadowing? Shadowing I guess. Lucius, on more than one occasion, bends down to let the grains of Colosseum sand run through his fingers, sun on his face and the roar of the crowd in his ears. The intent is clear, but it feels inorganically cultivated.

But there’s plenty to admire in the corpus of work. The action sequences, with occasionally patchy CGI, are satisfyingly grand and increasingly chaotic. Like Crowe, the gravity that Mescal’s puts into his fated avenger makes the protagonist almost impossible not invest everything in. Denzel delivers an awards-tier performance as a Machiavellian agitator. And the ‘never let them know your next move’ energy behind the pair of syphilitic, breathed-to-deeply-on-Eleusinian-fumes, fetishistically bonkers emperors Geta (played by Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) is just an authentic joy to watch.

This has to be one of the most nervously anticipated sequels of all time. Anything more than a whisper of hope that it could match its predecessor held the potential for the most tragic heartbreak. A betrayal befitting Caesar.

So, is it worth catching at the cinema?

Verdict: It doesn’t really matter what I think because not even wild chariots will stop fans of the original from seeing it. But it is worth watching. It’s an enjoyable, beautifully epic (hopefully) closing curve to one of cinema history’s greatest ever arcs. 

Gladiator II is out in cinemas across the UAE now. Book tickets: Now