Gladiator II has big sandals to fill. Its predecessor, the 2000 historical epic starring Russell Crowe, was both a box office hit and a Best Picture winner at the Oscars. Director Ridley Scott’s long-gestating sequel, out now, brings viewers back to the Colosseum with a new cast that includes Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, and even some historically questionable sharks. Naturally, critics can’t help comparing the two films — and making a bunch of “are you entertained” quips in the process. While many reviews agree that Gladiator II delivers on spectacle with bloody battles, there isn’t a strong consensus on whether other elements are enough to make it a satisfying follow-up. From thumbs-up to thumbs-downs, here’s how critics are reacting.
“I didn’t adore Gladiator, but I appreciated the melodramatic conviction at its core, the way it was unabashedly emotional about grief and justice and restoring order to the world. Gladiator II echoes elements from the first film, including talk of the ‘dream of Rome’ as a more egalitarian place, but while that idea is more central to the plot in the sequel, it feels even more abstract. Rome in this film isn’t solid enough to require saving or destruction — it’s a series of historical interiors the characters pass through. It’s only when characters fight that the movie comes alive.” —Alison Willmore, Vulture
“Scott holds you fast with his actors, the dynamism of his filmmaking, with shocks of beauty and jolts of queasy humor. Very few directors working today can put across a movie like Gladiator II as convincingly, which perhaps explains why the sequel — for all its barbaric violence and the plaintive, at times stirring, discussions about justice and democracy — doesn’t have the mournful quality that the first film did. Scott clearly had a blast making this movie and so did Washington, and they’re inviting you to have one, too, which proves easy.” —Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
“The way Mescal plays him, with an anger that never quite simmers to a boil, we now can’t help but see him as a millennial knockoff of Crowe’s glowering royal punk. At Gladiator II, are we not entertained? We are. But that’s not necessarily the same as enthralled.” —Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“In terms of brutal spectacle, elaborate period reconstruction and vigorous set pieces requiring complex choreography, the sequel delivers what fans of its Oscar-winning 2000 predecessor will crave — battles, swordplay, bloodshed, Ancient Roman intrigue. That said, there’s a déjà vu quality to much of the new film, a slavishness that goes beyond the caged men forced to fight for their survival, and seeps into the very bones of a drama overly beholden to the original.” —David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
“Gladiator is a hard act to follow, but Sir Ridley Scott proves still to be a master working up a Roman orgy of excitement that proves a worthy successor in every way.” —Pete Hammond, Deadline
“Set 16 years after Gladiator and featuring whichever of the original cast aren’t dead or unbribable, the new film has all the opulence of the first film but none of the majesty. It’s an epic without a purpose and therefore fine for a lazy Sunday streaming in a few months. After that, Gladiator II will find its true purpose playing on multiple screens in the TV aisle at Costco.” —Ty Burr, The Washington Post
“Still, this sequel mostly makes good on the promise of building from a foundation that goes back centuries yet carbon-dates to just a quarter of a century ago, the one issued from a man, bloodied but unbowed, standing before a spectators who want their money’s worth. You will not be necessarily be enlightened, empowered, or enthralled by all of Gladiator II. But you will almost assuredly be entertained.” —David Fear, Rolling Stone
“Never mind that this originality-free sequel fails to resonate like its predecessor. In the moment, audiences will be too razzle-dazzled to care.” —Peter Travers, ABC News
“Can a film be too much and not enough at the same time? This is the conundrum of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, a movie bursting with just enough spectacle to keep it from being boring but, when you try to get anything out of it thematically, slips through your fingers like the sand in a warrior’s hands. It’s a film that doesn’t so much struggle to escape the shadow of its predecessor as set up camp in it, willing to hit so many of the same beats and concepts that the rhythm becomes numbingly familiar.” —Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
“Gladiator II is ultimately a bigger, more bombastic and thematically messier movie than Gladiator, but it thrives on excellent performances and Scott’s knack for capturing ferocious fight sequences.” —Esther Zuckerman, Bloomberg
“Gladiator II maps closely onto the original film’s structure and style, so there’s not much about it that is surprising or unexpected. The film itself is a son, made from the same DNA in the same image. It is the only Gladiator sequel that could possibly exist and exactly what you expect, for better or for worse.” —Katie Walsh, The Los Angeles Times
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