THE CASE FOR — AND AGAINST — GLADIATOR II: 

When TikTok and Instagram turn men thinking about the Roman Empire into a meme, the historian’s job isn’t to list off the names of consuls and emperors or the years in which battles took place; it’s to use that as a chance to see Rome as a mirror for the present. People who lived long ago operated according to principles that were not our own, but the choices they made and the worlds they built show us something essential about what humanity can be. If we don’t engage thoughtfully with them, we’re doing them and us a disservice.

Whatever its flaws as a film or as a description of the past, Gladiator II accomplishes that task. If you’re paying attention, despite the copious gore, Denzel Washington having the time of his life as a scenery-chewing villain, and of course the sharks, you’ll leave the movie with a far deeper grasp of Rome as it actually was. People really did live and die on the sands of the Colosseum. Some benefited from that. Others suffered. While some will surely hate it for this, Gladiator II is surprisingly ambivalent about the Roman Empire. So are most of the people who spend their lives researching and writing about Rome. That’s not because they, or the movie, lack a perspective, but because knowing Rome—really knowing it—requires us to grapple with both spilt blood and gorgeous marble.

I’m willing to concede that Gladiator II has a richer and more detailed subtext than the first Gladiator movie, in which the hero’s quest to restore the Roman republic serves as the equivalent of the “MacGuffin” that drove so many Hitchcock movies. But having first seen Gladiator II on the big screen in Fort Worth yesterday afternoon, and then watching the original Gladiator purely because it was on TV back in the hotel room last night, it was obvious that the first Gladiator works so much better as a movie.

It has Russell Crowe, whom the film would make into a superstar, and he’s surrounded by a cast of colorful and dissipated old Brits – Oliver Reed, David Hemmings, and Richard Harris (okay, technically an Irishman). Again, as with Hitchcock’s frequent casting of Jimmy Stewart and Carry Grant, these actors bring all of the baggage they’ve accumulated through all the old movies we’ve seen them in, which acts as a sort cinematic shorthand. In Gladiator II,  with the exception of Connie Nielsen, whom we remember from the first Gladiator, and Denzel Washington, who brings his own superstar presence to the Gladiator II cast, none of the actors in the new film have anywhere near the sort of gravitas that grounded the original.

In the first movie, Ridley Scott only uses obvious CGI to create sweeping wide shots of Rome, or the large establishing shots of the Colosseum. In the sequel, Scott’s use of CGI feels incredibly self-indulgent, with phony looking sea battles, and unrealistic and occasionally sheer fantasy animals for the gladiators to fight. Then there’s what the denizens of the TV Tropes Website call an “anachronism stew,” where Scott depicts a Rome with outdoor coffee bars, paper newspapers, in the first battle scene, trebuchets.

If Gladiator II existed as an individual film, it would be a pretty good 21st century updating of the venerable “swords and sandals” genre which Hollywood and Italy have been churning out for decades and decades. Unfortunately, it has to serve as sequel to one of Scott’s best films – and on that level, I’m forced to give it a reluctant thumbs down.

UPDATE: Gladiator II: This time, it’s hokey. “Gladiator was a worthy heir to classics such as Ben-Hur; the sequel belongs in a category that includes 2 Fast 2 Furious. Mostly it’s a vehicle for Pascal to glower defiantly at the emperors and for Mescal to take his shirt off. Not that I’m complaining. No movie can be all that bad when it features Denzel Washington, in this case as the villainous slave trader Macrinus. Washington is not simply chewing the scenery here. He is rubbing the scenery tenderly in a blend of aromatic spices, slathering it in its own juices, and wolfing it down with a honey glaze. Whatever this screenplay had to offer, Washington gave.”