Almost 25 years after the first Gladiator, Ridley Scott is about to deliver a sequel, having weathered interruptions like the SAG-AFTRA strike and, weirdly, the FBI raid on P. Diddy.
The trailer for Gladiator II released yesterday, and while a degree of skepticism is understandable given our current IP-obsessed media landscape, it’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer scale of what’s promised.
If so many legacy sequels are concerned with giving the audience more of the same, Scott at least has the good sense to offer way, way more of the same, making its already-epic predecessor look as restrained and low-key as a Jim Jarmusch movie. Naval battles in the Colosseum! A guy riding a blood-spattered rhinoceros! Denzel Washington being avuncular yet undeniably sinister! Paul Mescal’s biceps! Did you like the malevolent, vaguely effeminate Roman emperor in the first movie? Now there are two malevolent, vaguely effeminate Roman emperors! Are you not entertained, indeed!
