After losing everything and everyone he loves, a gladiator fights for his life and, gradually, for a Rome that belongs to its people.
Epic, yet a convoluted narratological mess. Gladiator II is a film in which many things could have been said. An epic film that should require more analysis than a simple film review. Yet, this is not the case. The beautiful soundtrack and open credits serve their purpose and prepare you for the epicness that is about to follow. But without building up, Sir Ridley Scott cuts right to it. The first epic battle is impressive, and even though it could have been a lot more emotional due to the death of his beloved one, it isn’t.
From then on, the characters’ emotions constantly change without coherence; Jugurtha, the amazing Peter Mensah (also an exceptional martial artist), dies ridiculously and inexplicably immediately, and what you have until the very end is a script that makes minimum sense. The glorious and gory battles lose their meaning from the absolute lack of historicity to revelations that make zero sense to not producing any emotion whatsoever. The production design is immaculate, the visual and sound effects amazing, and the soundtrack is beautiful, but the plot and the dialogue are, unfortunately, disastrous.
It is a shame that so many positives are overshadowed by such a bad script. It really is. Twenty-four years after the original, one would expect that Scott and Paramount would have got it right. They really didn’t.
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