Gladiiator

Is that Siskel or Ebert?

Did you notice the title has the Roman numeral II in the middle of it? Indeed, that is about the most subtle part of the Gladiator remake. This is the second Ridley Scott project in recent memory — Napoleon being the other one — where it seems like it would have worked better as an eight-to-ten part Max or Netflix series. But instead we get sloppy storytelling that sets up a variety of spectacular visual sequences.

If you are familiar with Gladiator, you can see where this movie is going from the length of the Roman empire away. The charasmatic warrior Lucius (Paul Mescal) is captured by legions led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) and then sold into gladiatorial servitude to the enigmatic Macrinus (Denzel Washington himself!). Lucius turns out to be exceptional at killing man and beast and makes his way to the Colloseum. General Acacius and Macrinus have sketchier motives, I guess we’ll have to see about all of that. And we are introduced to the decadent emporer tandem, Geta and Caracalla. Lucilla (Connie Nielson) shows up and seems concerned about the fate of Rome. Contrived drama. Big finish.

With Gladiator, we all knew Maximus (an in-shape Russell Crowe) was pals with Marcus Aurelius and had been unjustly railroaded. He reluctantly did his killing to get his chance for vengeance, “in this lifetime or the next.” The big difference here is that there is some mystery surrounding who the actual protagonist is — is it the gladiator? General Acacius? Denzel? Lucilla? The fratelli imperatori?

The bad news is that if you haven’t seen Gladiator, it might be a little difficult to follow along. The good news is that it doesn’t really matter. This movie is the battlefield and the Roman Circus. Ridley Scott gives us a naval assault and a great siege to open the movie. He gives us a gladiator mounted on great rhinosoraus (hat tip to a classic Bugs Bunny short for the rhino’s fate). He turns the colleseum to a great, shark-infested naval theater. This is definitely one of those “see it in the theater” type movies because they spent a lot of money making this look spectacular.

That is, if you want to see it at all.