by In the past 120 years there’s been no shortage of good films. There’s also been bad films. And then there’s been those films that forever etch into your mind. From the very first screening, it is impossible to ever forget them. Hip shot in a wheat field? Ask any millennial and 25 years later, they’ll know it’s GLADIATOR. Ask anyone fifteen minutes after watching GLADIATOR 2 and they probably won’t even be able to tell you the name of its protagonist.
Films have reached a point where it is hard to defend them any longer. If films like GLADIATOR 2, consuming hundreds and millions of dollars but looking much less impressive than the TV-show SPARTACUS: Blood and Sand (2010), can still turn a profit on a forgettable experience, defending Hollywood by claiming they were catering to the zeitgeist is pushing it. In fact, it is hard to believe critics praising films that audiences give a lukewarm rating isn’t a marketing scam. It feels like the marketing machine is fed to its own purpose. Quality? Imagination? Creativity? Who cares when there’s algorithms and target group analysis.
GLADIATOR 2 basically uses the same plot that GLADIATOR used. But the similarities end here. Nobody seems to remember Samuel Tayler Coleridge’s suspension of disbelief anymore. Where the first film was purely fiction but presented in a way that made it plausible as a film, not a documentary, its successor is a slap in the face to anyone ever reading anything on ancient history. Why does it have to start with the conquest of Numidia, a land already part of the Roman Empire? Is it because nobody has the faintest idea where Numidia was? They could’ve made it anything except for Wakanda without their target group getting suspicious. Two emperors that were brothers suddenly ruling as degenerated twins that are so ruthless and cruel and self-indulgent they have to be disposed by their most successful general in a performance making you wish for him to be wearing that Mandalorian helmet. The hero? A lost son turned gladiator after his wife got killed during the Roman attack on Numidia.
We never get a feeling for what our hero lost but it is important his wife fought like a man before being honorably shot by arrow. Back in Rome, there’s also the owner of a school of gladiators that wants his hands on power. Somehow, the Numidian gladiator will serve him just fine. But it is hard to follow this story. What we do learn is that degenerate twin emperors are highly susceptible to paranoia against each other. What we do not learn is how either of the two ever secured loyalty but we just accept the Praetorian Guard operate on the age-old principle first come, first served. The serving is emperor Geta’s head on a plate, displayed in all digital ugliness an unnecessariness.
It is here that the film reveals its messy plot structured somewhat along the lines of the first film. But instead of great acting, beautiful cinematography and hand-made action, we see forgettable scenes, forgettable characters, forgettable heartbreak and implausible plot. GLADIATOR was a serious film, not real but believable. SPARTACUS: Blood and Sand showed good action overdone in a comic book art, focusing on sex and betrayal for the sub plots. Combine the two and remove anything human about it, including a feel for aesthetic shots, and you get GLADIATOR 2. Maybe it makes sense somehow in the end, when – what was his name again – addresses the Praetorian guard and the rebel army in a heartbreak speech that ends all conflict. But the truth is, it is hard to care.
If there is anything positive to say for GLADIATOR 2 it is that it’s a film of its time. That said, it’s not a good film and it is hard to imagine it having the staying power of the original it so shamelessly continues without any legitimate ties or even honoring its heritage. As long as films like that are turning profits, they will be made and probably forgotten once the money well dries up within a year of overpriced streaming offerings. If you like good films, don’t watch. If you liked GLADIATOR, please don’t watch. And if you care for history, the art of prop making, cinematography, drama, romance and basically anything that makes cinema great: avoid like the black plague.
