Review: ‘Gladiator II’ offers more of the same

Ridley Scott’s 2000 sword and sandal epic “Gladiator” closed on a memorable shot that became an indelible image associated with the film: star Russell Crowe’s hands, callused and battle-worn, softly caressing strands of wheat, as the spirit of his character Maximus makes his way home in the afterlife. Scott references this peaceful image in the opening of his sequel, “Gladiator II.” Rough, thick hands, toughened by farming and fighting, plunge into a sack of harvested grain, feeling the fruits of their labor.

These two similar shots become the thesis of this faithful sequel. It is the same movie, slightly tweaked, and constantly referencing and reminding you of the original, delivering what you already loved about “Gladiator”: strength and honor, blood and guts.

The hands that open “Gladiator II” belong to Lucius (Paul Mescal) the son of Maximus and Lucilla (Connie Nielsen). Once the crown prince of Rome, he fled at age 12 for his safety and is now a humble farmer in North Africa. He and his wife (Yuval Gonen) live an idyllic life of domestic bliss, interrupted by Roman incursions.

It’s one such incursion, led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal), that returns Lucius to his home city, now enslaved, as his father was, and as a grieving widower, as his father was.

Also like his father, Lucius has a knack for showmanship, but he’s more feral, going tooth-to-tooth with a nasty baboon in a podunk ring outside the city. His ferociousness catches the eye of gladiator agent Macrinus (Denzel Washington), much in the same way Maximus caught the eye of Proximo (Oliver Reed), and Macrinus is going to make Lucius a star.

This is a film of doubles, a sequel about a son, repeated characters, dual identities and twice the violence in the Coliseum. So of course twin emperors rule Rome in an uneasy brotherly alliance.

Faces painted white, surrounded by concubines of every gender, Emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) are utterly taken with the barbarian who can recite Virgil while covered in another man’s blood. Lucius becomes the toast of the Coliseum, leading the other gladiators to victory against rhinos, sharks and all manner of human and animal beast.

Because there’s so much going on, with multiple double-crosses, backstabbing, front stabbing, politicking (and also the sharks), what “Gladiator II” is lacking from its forebear is sophisticated storytelling, deep character work and nuanced messaging. The script by David Scarpa and Peter Craig falls a bit flat because it just tells you what it’s about right on the surface.

If “Gladiator” were Scott’s thinly veiled “Hollywood movie,” an allegory about the business of creating entertainment for a fickle emperor who thumbs up and down from on high, then “Gladiator II” is his not-so-thinly veiled “democracy movie.” Lucius delivers several speeches about “the dream of Rome” that he learned about at the knee of his grandpa, Marcus Aurelius.

Though the script falters, the spectacle does not, and “Gladiator II” is the best-looking Scott film in years. Bright and bloody, sandblasted and sunworn, it has the visual crispness of the first, and it doesn’t bear the strange desaturated look of some of his recent work.

The cast is uniformly excellent, including the peacocking Washington and the soulful Irish actor Mescal, looking like the statue of David come to life in fierce, animalistic form. Nielsen is radiant as Lucilla, 25 years after she first played the role, and achieves a bit of redemption for the character. Quinn and Hechinger revel in the ickiness of the dear leaders.

“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 exactly what you expect, for better or for worse.

Rating: R (for strong bloody violence)