Gladiator II trailer reaction
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Naval combat in the Colosseum in Gladiator II
On Tuesday, the first trailer for Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II appeared on YouTube. I immediately watched it and opened up a draft post here on the blog. A few thoughts:
I’ve been skeptical of a sequel to Gladiator for as long as Scott and friends have been talking about it. Not only was Gladiator a great movie and a perfect standalone story, it was—like Star Wars or Pirates of the Caribbean—lightning in a bottle, a lucky product of the planned, the unforeseen, and the ability of imaginative craftsmen to adapt to unique circumstances. Recreating the magic of such a great movie for a sequel would not only be unnecessary, I thought, it would probably prove impossible. It hasn’t helped that some of the leaked proposals for a follow-up were insane. Add to this the aging Sir Ridley’s increasingly unconcealed indifference to history and Napoleon’s thudding arrival last year and I hope you’ll understand why I wasn’t excited to learn, in the middle of all that, that Gladiator II was finally shooting.
Well, now that a trailer has arrived I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised.
Gladiator II picks up the story of Lucius (Paul Mescal), the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), Commodus’s sister and Maximus’s love interest in the original, about twenty years later. When we last see him in Gladiator he’s leaving the sand of the arena where Maximus and Commodus have just killed each other. Now he is, per the trailer and scraps of information online, living in North Africa. Apparently he is captured in an amphibious raid by a Roman army under Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) and sold into slavery as a gladiator, where he follows his hero Maximus’s example by taking the fight to Rome via the Colosseum.
Lucius’s owner and trainer is Macrinus (Denzel Washington), who appears to have a similarly intimidating semi-mentor role to that of Proximo in the original. Macrinus has designs on political power, which is currently wielded by brothers and co-emperors Geta and Caracalla (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger). Bloodsport ensues.
What most surprised me about this trailer is the extent to which it recaptures the feel of the original. Gladiator had a look you could smell. The sharp, sun-drenched palettes, the sand and grit, the backlit smoke, the lavish textiles, the metal that looks hot to the touch, and the towering classical architecture are all present in Gladiator II. The seamless fit of this with the original’s style, more than anything else, made me excited for this movie.
This is, of course, playing to Scott’s strong suit. None of it means that the story will adequately support the visuals. (See again Napoleon.) Scope is guaranteed, but depth?
Other observations:
I’m honestly thrilled to see more of the Colosseum, including its famous mock naval battles—complete with dolphins? sharks?—and a beast fight. When you learn about the Colosseum in school this is the stuff you really wish you could see. And this sample looks great.
Speaking of the beast fight, the segments with the rhino reveal the starkest visual difference between this and the original: obvious CGI. Gladiator had some but here, nearly a quarter century later, it’s more apparent. The rhino looks pretty great but Lucius’s little tumble doesn’t.
I like the nods to Maximus’s arms and armor. A proper Roman touch, and a nice callback to Maximus and Lucius’s scene in the original.
Marcus Acacius’s amphibious attack looks rather too much like the climactic fight in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Potential unintentional comedy.
Plotwise, this really looks like a rehash of Maximus’s story from the original. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I hate to see a great movie followed up twenty-four years later with the standard same-but-different sequel plot.
Hans Zimmer has not returned to compose the score, which is a bummer. I’m curious to see whether Harry Gregson-Williams, a fine composer, repurposes some of Zimmer’s themes or writes entirely new music.
“The greatest temple Rome ever built: the Colosseum.” Great line. I’m reminded of an observation my undergrad Rome professor made: you can learn a lot about a civilization by looking at the buildings it spends the most time and effort on and that dominate its skyline. In the Middle Ages it was the castle and the cathedral. Today it’s the skyscraper. In Rome it was the arena.
Okay, history stuff:
I expect no attempt at accuracy. Like the original, I plan to enjoy this as a good movie and nothing more—provided it’s a good movie.
Geta and Caracalla were real emperors who ruled together following the death of their father, Septimius Severus (r. AD 193-211). Geta was assassinated, presumably at his older brother’s bidding, after less than a year of co-rule, so that places the events of this movie in AD 211. Caracalla ruled another six years, though, and has entered history as a byword for imperial cruelty and bloodthirstiness alongside Caligula and Nero. Presumably his fratricide will play some role in the film.
Caracalla was eventually murdered while on campaign and succeeded by Macrinus, Denzel Washington’s character. The real Macrinus was Berber rather than black, a fact internet comment sections are already full of fulmination about, and reigned a little over a year. At least one production still of Washington sitting on what looks like a throne has been released. After being murdered in his turn, Macrinus was succeeded by Elegabalus, a notoriously perverted teenage tyrant who has been the subject of a recent move to spin him as a “transgender woman.” Gladiator II is probably already biting off more than it can chew, history-wise. Lord help us if the filmmakers go there.
Geta and Caracalla get a stereotypical depraved Roman emperor look, with an uncanny resemblance to John Hurt’s Caligula in I, Claudius. They creeped my wife out when I showed her the trailer.
Marcus Acacius has a rather presentist line about not wishing to “waste another generation of young men for their [Geta and Caracalla, presumably] vanity.” You’ll have to look hard to find someone outright defending Caracalla—who, in addition to his personal violence and cruelty, also debased the coinage and granted citizenship to nearly everyone in the Empire—but he didn’t campaign pointlessly. Scott’s modern posturing creeping in, as usual.
Verdict: cautiously optimistic.
So we’ll see. I don’t precisely have high hopes for Gladiator II but the trailer looks good and I’ll certainly be there when the film opens in November.
