By DAVID CHAPEK/Staff Writer
“The Empire Strikes Back,” “The Godfather II” and “The Dark Knight”. These legendary sequels attained the rare feat of generally being considered on par with, if not better than, their original counterpart.
Far more common is the good-but-not-quite-as-good sequel that inevitably gets lost in the glory of its predecessor (or its seemingly obligatory follow-up). Think of “The Two Towers” which, despite winning multiple Academy Awards, is still overshadowed by the first and third movies of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
Similarly, “Gladiator II” faced an impossible task when it hit theaters. It follows the original “Gladiator,” one of the greatest war epics of all time since its release in 2000. The resulting high expectations mirrored Ridley Scott’s own need for a box-office hit, following his disappointing production of “Napoleon.”
And to be fair, this historical fiction drama, set during the ancient Roman Empire, delivered on some of those expectations. Battles, politics, revolution – the sequel presented them all in new ways, replacing land battles with naval battles, replacing one emperor with two, and replacing tigers with … monkeys?
Yeah, we’re still not sure about that last one.
The first half of the movie was more or less a shot-for-shot remake of the original. A main character, who happens to be a happily married commander, gets captured by Romans and his wife is killed. He becomes a gladiator for low-level games, and then – when the immature emperor(s) holds games in another main character’s honor, the titular gladiator travels to Rome with the singular intention of killing his family’s murderer.
Will he succeed?
Nostalgic? Definitely. Unoriginal? Certainly.
But is this not what we came to see?
In terms of acting, Paul Mescal’s character was difficult to connect with. The opening scene features the death of his wife, but it felt more like a shameless rip-off from the first movie than a weighty moment.
The rest of the characters, however, make up for it. Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal deliver excellent performances, while Connie Nielsen reprises her role as Lucilla to perfection.
There is only one truly unforgivable issue – the rewriting of the original story’s ending.
“Gladiator” ends with Marcus Aurelius’s dream coming true: Rome is finally going to be free. A few decades later, the empire is right back where it started, with all the main characters declaring the late emperor’s dream dead or lost.
So apparently Maximus’s death was for nought, aside from revenge against the man who killed his family. That is not the hero we fell in love with.
But don’t let the flaws dissuade you from appreciating the story in all its grandeur. The action scenes are generally crisp and the political drama, though not as subtle as the original, still holds up.
Don’t go in expecting a Russell Crowe-level performance, or you will be disappointed. Rather, go in expecting an enjoyable two-hour return to Rome that capitalizes on nostalgia for the characters you fell in love with the first go-around.
Do that, and (to answer Maximus’s question) you will be entertained.
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