It’s been twenty years since Russell Crowe’s noble Maximus Decimus Meridius finally expired in the Coliseum through the machinations of the evil Roman emperor Commodus, and twenty years since Ridley Scott’s wildly successful first Gladiator revived the sword-and-sandal epic on the big screen.
Now the noble gladiator is back, this time in the person of Lucius, played by Irish actor Paul Mescal, whose casting in the lead role swayed my decision to go and see Gladiator II notwithstanding reviews that warned of severe goriness.
The plot is a follow-on from the events of the original Gladiator, albeit set twenty years later. The time lapse is long enough for us to forget a few details about who was who in the bloodline. At the end of the original, Commodus is mightily cheesed off because his young nephew Lucius – a minor role in that film – idolises the brave Maximus instead of his evil uncle. A sly change of paternity in the script and lo – this time round Lucius turns out to be ….. well, I won’t spoil it even though the revelation comes reasonably early in the plot of Glad II. Let’s just say the change provides a solid underpinning for the character’s motivation, as they say in drama school.
The film starts with our hero – then known as Hanno – living in a village near a fortress in northern Africa with his beloved wife. Suddenly a warning: the Romans are coming! In their warships! The men are summoned to the defence of their walled city. Hanno’s wife joins them. She’s handy with a bow and arrow herself and looks pretty cool in gauntlets and studded leather armour. (I checked and while the Romans didn’t have women in their armies, they did come across female warriors in other cultures, so that’s alright then.)
The ensuing attack is wonderfully realised. Ridley Scott is good at this sort of thing: the Romans throw flaming balls of pitch (or whatever it is) with their catapults, they ram their ships’ heavy prows into the fortress walls, they throw up their shields in unison against the arrows of the foe, they deploy their portable ramps against the walls to storm the citadel. In short, they do everything you’ve ever read or heard about that made the Romans such an indomitable military force. It’s thrilling stuff.
They win, and in the course of the battle Hanno’s wife gets killed. Hanno is captured and enslaved and vows vengeance against the victorious Roman general Marcus Acacius who caused all this death and mayhem.
He’s the first baddie. But not really, as it turns out. The real baddies are to be found at the top, as usual. Just as bad emperor Commodus was the nemesis of Maximus, so the twin emperors Geta and Caracalla – depicted here as pale, effete degenerates (which struck me as a bit unwoke) – are behind all the evil currently bedevilling Rome, including the insatiable lust for new territory which prompted the attack on Hanno’s city.
As the plot unfolds we learn how and why Hanno grew up in Africa Nova unaware that he is Lucius, a descendant of the Good Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who was indeed something of a wise philosopher king.
It’s a familiar trajectory from here on. From slave to gladiator to top gladiator to hero and champion of the downtrodden, one bloody encounter at a time. The arenas get bigger, the enemy combatants meaner and nastier. It starts with big bruiser blokes, then come the animals: first a really angry critter which I think is meant to be a baboon but which has definitely had CGI work done to make him look more like something out of Alien. Then there’s the rhino, driven by a big monster of a fella standing upright on its back in saddle stirrups. Hmmm. I’m prepared to accept the Romans could get rhinos into the arena, but did they – could anyone – get a bit into its mouth?
Then there’s the full-on naval battle in a flooded Coliseum. We know about those. But how did they get the man-eating sharks in there?
I shouldn’t quibble about such things; this isn’t an SBS doco after all. Nevertheless the glory and splendour of ancient Rome are there in spades, along with nods to the classic Hollywood sword-and-sandal epic such as the Spartacus moment where the loyal band of brothers step forward one after the other to cry ‘I did it! No, I did it!’ when the nasty gladiator overlord demands to know who threw something at the emperor that only narrowly missed.
There’s a nod to real history too when the degenerate Caracalla makes his pet monkey First Consul of Rome, a la Caligula with his horse.
It is terribly gory. I had to avert my eyes half a dozen times. During one such interval I idly let my mind wander into composing one of those formulaic shorthand summaries: ‘This movie is Ben Hur meets Spartacus meets I Claudius meets The Hunger Games. I was reminded of the latter by the pale-faced androgynous MC revelling in the bloodsport taking place in the coliseum arena below.
That was Matt Lucas, who really looked the part, no offence to him, and he did look like he was having fun. There was plenty more similar enjoyment to be had from that entertaining moviegoing pastime of spotting familiar faces. Derek Jacobi (hail I Claudius!) plays a Roman Senator plotting with General Acacius (now a goodie) and others against the corruption of the Imperial Court.
You’ll recognise English actor Tim McInnerney from Blackadder and Notting Hill and countless other British movies and series. He plays a Roman senator who toadies to Denzel Washington’s ruthless gladiator boss because he owes him lots of money.
If you ever watched that brilliant Israeli series Fauda you’ll recognize tough guy Lior Raz as the gladiator trainer.
Connie Nielsen, who was in the first Gladiator as Maximus/Rusty’s love interest, is back in the same role, but now she’s married to Acacius. I’ll leave you to put two and two together about where that leaves her vis-à-vis Lucius.
It’s quite an old-fashioned story in its celebration of the old-fashioned virtues of courage, honour, strength and endurance winning out against war and greed and degeneracy. I liked that, and despite all the gore I couldn’t help enjoying it when the baddies got their comeuppance. Of the ending, let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a Gladiator 3.
