GLADIATOR II and Milking Functionally Redundant Franchise Nipples

Sitting down to write a few words about Gladiator II (and even as I am typing this, a little devil on my shoulder whispers into my ear that I should write it as GladIIator just to look all edgy and cool and stuff) I was reminded of an at this point classic comedy from the turn of the century, Meet the Parents. Specifically, one scene came to my mind in which Greg (soon to be outed as Gaylord) Focker played by Ben Stiller was explaining to his partner’s parents Jack and Pamela (played by Robert De Niro and Teri Polo) how he once allegedly milked a cat. This otherwise delightfully embarrassing scene in which Greg has to navigate the web of lies he may have inadvertently woven while trying to appear worthy to marry into Jack’s “circle of trust” descended into outright madness as Greg engaged in a bout of pantomime where he showed everyone at the table with medical precision just what it takes to milk a cat and then proceeded to dispel Pamela’s disbelief by telling her that everything with nipples can be milked. Which is where De Niro’s Jack summed everything up by saying “I have nipples. Can you milk me, Greg?”

This iconic scene from a comedy that—ironically enough—spawned one too many sequels and spin-offs (and which was also a remake itself, by the way) should remain a useful reminder to everyone that just because something is technically possible does not mean it should be done. Jurassic Park is another great example of just that sentiment. “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should” is a line Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcom hurls at Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond as if to remind him of the scientific humility his geneticists failed to display while resurrecting extinct species of dinosaurs.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. If something has nipples, it doesn’t mean it can (or should) be milked. I suppose these words read as Greek to Hollywood executives who gleefully persist in a state of perpetual denial about producing profit-driven entertainment, as they continue giving their blessing to legacy sequels to movies which were never intended to sustain a sequel. Especially if those movies have nipples because it immediately invites a rationalization that they can, in fact, be milked. You don’t need to look very far for examples, as the last decade and a half are uniformly seasoned with nostalgia sequels of varying quality, from Jurassic World, Indiana Jones (both Crystal Skull and The Dial of Destiny), The Matrix and Star Wars, all of which had existed as franchises before, all the way to Top Gun, Twister and Beetlejuice (and many more I cannot recall off-hand because I’d have to stop typing and risk ruining a perfectly enjoyable writing flow state in order to add more titles to this list).

And now, we can add Gladiator II to the list of movies that should have never been greenlit, even though they do technically have nipples. However, Ridley Scott tends to think differently and there is no debating that cantankerous octogenarian Sanddancer, therefore now we live in a world where, twenty-four years on, we have another movie in what is now unfortunately called the Gladiator franchise.

Taking a more or less literal approach to the passage of time, Gladiator II takes place sixteen years after the events of the original film where we follow Hanno (Paul Mescal), a man who is thrust into the millstone of history as his peaceful existence in Numidia is disrupted by the assault of Roman conquerors led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal). The Romans kill Hanno’s wife and capture Hanno, who is then acquired by a man called Macrinus (Denzel Washington) with a hope to become a badass gladiator. After all, having fought and won against a troop of shaved baboons (and I’d be more fearful of a man whose job it was to shave those baboons rather than the men who had to fight them with bare hands and teeth), Hanno becomes a bit of a local sensation. He makes his way to Rome, which is overseen by a set of two twin emperors Geta and Caracalla (Joseph Quinn and Greg Hechinger) who are as crazy as monkeys on meth trapped in a barrel. One thing leads to another—and it surely must do so because a legacy sequel needs to fit into that legacy somehow—and it is finally revealed (to very little fanfare and surprise) that Hanno is actually Lucius, the grandson of Marcus Aurelius and the son of Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, who did get to have his vengeance in this life, rather than the next.

Thus, Hanno/Lucius becomes a focal point in a story that is set to mimic and symmetrize with now iconic memes the original Gladiator gave rise to. He rubs sand into the palms of his hands like his dad he didn’t know was his dad, gives speeches to random crowds of men and even does a double-sword decapitation in one scene. Though he never asks the audience if they are not entertained. I suppose what we do in life echoes in eternity, but only to a point. From the point of view of acoustics, it all makes sense to me because an echo loses fidelity each time it bounces off a surface, so it only follows that Gladiator II will not reflect the memes and ideas borrowed from Gladiator verbatim, but rather flick them at the screen and use vague concepts you may or may not recognize from that movie you saw a quarter of a century ago.

Consequently, the plot armor keeping this movie together is only barely original-looking, and it is vaguely transplanted from the movie which earned Ridley Scott that coveted Best Director Oscar nomination. It’s a de facto calque of the original narrative wrapped around a core revenge narrative where Hanno/Lucius seeks retribution for Acacius killing his wife and where Rome is being run into the ground by not one but two rabid Commoduses (or Commodi?) on fentanyl. And it also conveniently turns out that Acacius and his wife Lucilla (played by Connie Nielsen, who is one of the few returning cast members of the original film next to Derek Jacobi) are planning a revolt and—just like in the original—they might have a garrison of soldiers waiting for their orders in Ostia.

It’s all ostensibly predictable, if you ask me. Having seen a number of legacy sequels in recent years I can safely inform you that at this point there is very little novelty in this section of the entertainment space and that Hollywood has successfully industrialized this concept of resurrecting an old movie that was perfectly fine as a standalone self-contained narrative, finding out it has nipples and just going at them like it was Ben Stiller’s fake cat in Meet the Parents.

Therefore, for all its blockbuster posturing, I don’t think I have it in me to give Gladiator II a passing grade. And it’s not even the fact that the movie is so heightened and outlandishly anachronistic that it makes Zack Snyder’s 300 look like a historically accurate sandal epic. In fact, I look at the outraged think pieces and listicles enumerating all the various “things this movie gets wrong about Ancient Rome” as falling right into Ridley Scott’s trap because I can only imagine he’d parry any and all accusations of historical inaccuracy by asking those critics if they were there in Ancient Rome before telling them to go and eff off. So, I can only smile at the sharks at the Colosseum, or at Denzel Washington reading a newspaper made of papyrus. In fact, I’d be happy for it to say “SPQR Today” or something equally as ridiculous. This is fine, just as seeing cannonballs fired at the pyramids in Napoleon wasn’t the problem with that particular movie.

The problem is that it doesn’t cohere narratively and doesn’t take me on a journey worth putting your shoes on for. And if I had to be pedantic about it, the entire conceit of the movie was that it should have capitalized on the journey the 2000 Gladiator took me on and used it as a springboard for some kind of a reverential tour de force. But it just doesn’t work and it’s not the first time I get to state this while writing about a movie based on another movie from decades ago. The legacy sequel trend is on its deathbed, and it just goes to show that Hollywood has been scraping the bottom of the barrel for so long now in search for “franchisable” material that in an act of desperation they are reaching for movies that should have been left alone where they were. What’s next? American Beauty 2?

Put simply, Gladiator II is a hot mess that veers like a spinning top with a disturbed precession between referencing the original with quotes and visual nods, competently engineered yet somehow lifeless set pieces and dense political plotting that means absolutely nothing to anyone, and it is all wrapped around a gamble that Paul Mescal’s Hanno/Lucius can carry Russell Crowe’s jockstrap. Well… the jury is out on that last one because although Mescal is a great actor (see Aftersun or All of Us Strangers for reference) capable of both reaching great dramatic heights and internalizing character depth, he is either miscast in the role or his character is incomprehensibly written. He’s a guy who doesn’t show what others tell us about him. He smirks and smiles at the camera while Denzel Washington tells me he’s filled with rage and that he hates his mum for abandoning him.

And this extends to the entire cast, which makes me think now that the problem Gladiator II has has more to do with the script rather than with performance or direction. If anything, Ridley Scott is a seasoned master. He knows what’s what. None of the principal players are convincing enough and only Denzel Washington looks as though he was having fun wearing robes and veritable tons of jewellery. I’m sorry, but this movie is just too busy, too unfocused and not earnest enough to hold the candle to the movie it owes its existence to.

And maybe—just maybe—it is a sign that Ridley Scott, who in his Lebensabend seems to have accelerated his artistic output, should think twice about movies he signs up to milk. Because some nipples are functionally redundant. Sadly, Gladiator II isn’t a raw success The Last Duel was, but rather a dud in the vein of House of Gucci or Napoleon. And if anything, it makes Godzilla x Kong the only movie this year to make good use of the Colosseum. In fact, I think I’d respond with a resounding “yessir” to a question if I am not entertained, if I had seen Godzilla take a nap in the Colosseum right after Paul Mescal was done bleeding in it.