On Nov. 22, 2024 Ridley Scott’s, Gladiator ll, hit the big screen.
“Gladiator II”, the highly anticipated sequel to one of the greatest action movies of the 21st century.
Follows up twenty years after the events of the original film unfolded, with the introduction of the main character “Hanno” played by Paul Mescal. Hanno is sold into slavery after the Roman army, lead by General Acacius, Played by Pedro Pascal, Invade Hannos home and claim it for the Roman Empire. The rest of the story follows Hano and his Journey for revenge against General Acacius and the Roman Empire.
I went to see a movie this past weekend, and I left the theater unfulfilled. At the moment I was enjoying the movie, but when I took a second to look back at the plot, I felt that it was a hollow regurgitation of the first “Gladiator” movie. I will give the movie its flowers, as it had great spectacles and fight scenes to keep me engaged.
Leila Gjeldum, junior, who I went to the movie with, said that she really enjoyed it.
“It was super entertaining, I didn’t care about the plot as much because the fights were super cool to watch,” Gjeldum said. ¨What I thought was really cool was when they flooded the colosseum and had a naval battle.”
I agree with Leila to an extent because it was cool to watch, Things like the naval battle in the Coliseum, and even the opening of the film, when the Romans Invade Numidia. But that could only take its horrid plot so far. A minor issue I had with this was the historical inaccuracies.
Senior Joao Victor Lourenco agreed.
“It’s hard for me to get immersed into a movie when there’s blatant historical inaccuracies right in front of my face,” Lourenco said. “In ancient Rome they didn’t have cafes and newspapers. Little things like that take away from the movie for me.”
I also found these inaccuracies to be problematic, as “Gladiator” tried to stay away from these to keep it as historically accurate as possible. For example, in “Gladiator II,” in the naval battle in the Colosseum they put sharks in the water, which never happened in Ancient Rome. And in the start of the movie, when Hanno had his first fight as a gladiator, he battled these weird monkey-like creatures (again, obviously not accurate to the time period). Things like that just didn’t help this movie’s case for me.
Josh Bey, senior also had a similar comment, but with regards to the character plot.
“I didn’t understand where the twin emperors came from, or how Marcinus (Played by Denzel Washington) rose to power so fast,” Bey said.
Overall, “Gladiator II” is a fun watch in the moment, but the shallow plot and lack of character development ruined it for me. A movie which had so much potential got turned into a cash grab, and in my opinion, tainted the good name of the franchise.
If you want to watch “Gladiator II,” then you can find tickets at this link
