Gladiator II review: 'By far the best popcorn film of the year'

Paul Mescal is the "mesmerising centre" of Ridley Scott's long-awaited Gladiator sequel, which balances emotional drama and social themes with all-out action spectacle.

How can you not love a film that has swords, sandals, sharks in the flooded Roman Colosseum, Denzel Washington in flowing robes and Paul Mescal biting a baboon? There's much more than that, both serious and camp, in Ridley Scott's exhilarating and fun sequel to Gladiator, which won the Oscar for best picture nearly a quarter of a century ago. Full of spectacle and spectacular performances, Gladiator II is by far the best popcorn film of the year.

Mescal, a counterintuitive choice given his sensitive roles in Normal People and Aftersun, is the mesmerising centre of the film, holding it together with the same power and magnetism Russell Crowe brought to the original. The sequel has a less perfect balance between emotion and action than the first, with beheadings and swordfights almost overwhelming the characters, but it comes close enough.

Those comparisons aren't gratuitous, because Gladiator II is full of echoes of the original, in which Crowe's gladiator, Maximus, and the vile Caesar, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) battled to the death in the Colosseum. Lucius, Maximus's son with Commodus' sister, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen, returning to that role here) was then a small boy sent away from Rome for his own safety. Fifteen years later, here he is played by Mescal, more sinewy than usual but thankfully not pumped up to the cartoonish proportions of a Marvel character.

Lucius has grown into manhood in Numidia in northern Africa, and soon plunges into war against the Roman invaders. Scott is in total command of the action scenes, and makes that point with an extravagant opening battle. Numidians catapult balls of fire toward the approaching Roman ships, Roman arrows fly toward the Numidian battlements, Lucius's warrior wife is killed, and he is captured and sent toward Rome, vowing revenge against the empire's General Acacius (Pedro Pascal).

The Rome he returns to is more colourful and sinister than ever. Now there are two decadent emperors, twins ruling jointly without regard for the populace, creepy visions in pasty white face makeup and heavy eyeliner. Joseph Quinn is especially chilling, quietly intense and fearsome as Geta, the smarter and therefore more dangerous of the two. Fred Hechinger is the wild-eyed, out-of-control Caracella, the Fredo to Geta's Michael Corleone. Washington plays the enigmatic Macrinus, a wealthy businessman and owner of gladiators who buys Lucius. With jewelled rings on every finger and gold chains around his neck, Washington approaches the role with absolute gusto and over-the-top delivery as Macrinus schemes for power. But at times he pulls the performance back enough to reveal the canniness beneath that brash persona. Pascal's fans may be disappointed in his relatively smaller role and subdued performance. He doesn't make much of an impact, even though it turns out Acacius is married to Lucilla and shares her desire to depose the demented, blood-thirsty emperors.

In the big-action arena scenes, Scott pulls out all the stops. A Roman enters riding a rhino. The editing is kinetic as tigers and baboons are unleashed against Lucius and the other gladiators, who are called barbarians. Lucius is so fierce he chomps on a baboon's furry arm. At close range those baboons are conspicuously fake, a weak spot in special effects that are generally smooth. Some distant backgrounds also look flatly CGI'ed, but Scott stages the action with enough volatility to overcome those small glitches. Where his recent Napoleon (2023) was big and sluggish, and House of Gucci (2021) a ludicrous mess, Gladiator II has the masterful pacing of Scott's best films, including the classics Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982).

In the smaller-scale episodes, Scott knows when to give Mescal the close-ups that allow him to shine, exuding Lucius's determination and anger. That is especially true in his defiant conversations with Macrinus, who does not yet know that Lucius is the heir to the empire, but wonders why this gladiator can quote Virgil. Mescal's intelligent performance raises the level of the film beyond its violent combat.

And some of the violence is emotional. Most viewers will know going in, as the film's trailer reveals, that Lucius is Maximus's son, so we are way ahead of most characters. But one of the most bracing episodes takes place when Lucilla recognises the gladiator as her son and visits him in his jail-like cell, a meeting that defies our easy expectations.

As the film heads toward its ultimate battles, the camp level rises. There is a scene with Macrinus, the Roman Senate and a severed head (no spoilers; it's not Washington's head) that is just silly. At times Washington and the emperor twins seem to be in a little camp-fest all their own, but instead of pulling against the rest of the film, that style lands as another sign that Gladiator II is meant to be an entertaining romp. 

Under its crowd-pleasing surface, though, the film's theme of political power, of who wields it and how, is strong and purposeful, even if Scott cagily weaves it into the colourful show. Asked by The New York Times if he saw a connection between his Roman Empire and the political world today, Scott bluntly answered: "Yeah. If we don't watch it we're getting worse," adding: "I try and keep that in the forefront" in the film, pointing to some of Lucius's questions about what Rome values. "Is this how Rome treats its heroes?" Lucius yells from the arena when one of them is killed.

That social theme was evident in the first Gladiator, where the civic-minded Senator Gracchus (Derek Jacobi, who returns briefly in the sequel) warns against underestimating the shallowness of the mob, easily placated with bread and circuses. "He will bring them death and they will love him for it," he says of Commodus, who offers no more than the distraction of the games. In Gladiator II, Lucilla says, "The people are weary of the madness, the tyranny." Which of them is right is the sequel's open question, as Lucius talks about his grandfather's dream of a Roman Republic and asks the citizens: "Dare we rebuild that dream together?"

If we're lucky, Scott may have an answer. He told The Hollywood Reporter that he has an idea for Gladiator III inspired by The Godfather II. From his lips to the Roman gods' ears.

★★★★☆

Gladiator II is released on 15 November in the UK and 22 November in the US.

--

If you liked this story, sign up for The Essential List newsletter – a handpicked selection of features, videos and can't-miss news delivered to your inbox every Friday. 

For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.