TruthScript Reviews: Gladiator II

The 1959 film Ben-Hur is one of three films to be nominated for eleven Academy Awards. It remains one of the top-grossing films of all time, earning close to 1 Billion dollars at the box office (adjusted for inflation). To say the film is “big” would be putting it mildly. It’s a massive film. Spanning nearly three hours, it features vast Roman legions marching through the Holy Land, an epic battle at sea, and a chariot race so famous that several myths still circulate concerning its production, most notably that a stuntman died in its filming. 

Ben-Hur is also a profound film. It’s a quintessential expression of ancient Rome on film and the Cinemascope era of movies, but its most meaningful quality is how it portrays Christ. You never see His face in the movie, but His effect is arguably one of the most deeply felt in any film about Him. Few movies have come close to recapturing the historical essence of a film like Ben-Hur, but 2000’s Gladiator may have come the closest. 

Like Ben-Hur, in Gladiator, most everything you see on camera is real – sets, characters, landscapes. Though differing in its fairly gratuitous violence, Gladiator still did manage to capture the sweeping, epic feeling of Ben-Hur, and is still considered one of the greatest films about Ancient Rome. The character development was thorough, the villain easy to hate, and the hero impossible not to route for. 

Unfortunately, they decided to make a sequel.

Squeezing Every Last Dime

Like the gladiatorial games, the entertainment of a dying culture becomes evermore redundant, uninteresting, and pointlessly repetitive. We see this playing out at local movie theatres week after week. Few original stories are offered to us on the silver screen, and the ones that typically function as woke, progressive self-congratulation or evangelism. Our options tend to be increasingly cartoonish superhero fare or sequels to previously successful movies. Each film feels like a mathematical equation designed to squeeze every dollar possible out of the audiences in the US and China. They are bloated with CGI, but almost always lack character development. 

Like a carnival ride, some may be fun for a moment, some might make you throw up, but they all kind of feel the same. Unfortunately, Gladiator II is no expectation.

CGI Slop

One of the most impressive sequences in the original Gladiator is the opening. The forces of Emperor Marcus Aurelius under the command of Russel Crowe’s General Maximus Decimus Meridius engage Germanic tribes in a dark forest somewhere in Northern Europe. The battle between the Roman army and the Germanic horde is violent and intense. The lack of any computerized enhancements makes it feel much more real. Several movies have attempted to portray the Roman conquest of the Northlands (The Eagle and Centurion being two notable examples), but few capture the essence of the history like Gladiator. 

This reliance on CGI characterized the rest of the film, especially whenever animals are involved. Several gladiatorial sequences in the Colosseum feature men vs. animals, including sharks (they flood the amphitheater), rhinos, and some truly awful-looking baboons. Much of the stylistic combat in these scenes is merely copied from the original film.

Gladiator II also features an opening battle, another Roman conquest, this time of a small city in North Africa that’s presented as the “last fortress to fall” in the Mediterranean. The runtime of the battle is roughly the same length as in Gladiator but feels much more rushed. Despite having a significantly larger budget, the battle is nearly all CGI, even to the water the Roman CGI ships are sailing on.

Character Development

Gladiator II also suffers from one of the most widespread ailments of Hollywood productions today: a lamentable lack of character development. We aren’t exactly sure who the primary hero is because we just don’t get to know anyone in the film well enough to decide. The two effeminate emperors running Rome are clearly the villains. We know this because it’s mentioned that they are “oppressors,” but we don’t specifically know how or why. A courageous general plans a coup against the emperors, but we don’t know enough about him to decide whether he’s worth cheering on or not. 

Unfortunately, the most 2-dimensional character is Lucius Verus Aurelius, the primary protagonist. After being captured by the Romans and suffering the death of his wife, a “girl-boss” archer who is killed in the opening sequence, Lucius becomes the default leader of the gladiators he fights among. We don’t really know why, other than that his father was Marcus Aurelius. Despite barely knowing his father, he manages to repeat many of Marcus Aurelius’ lines while fighting in the Colosseum. 

Other characters in the film suffer the same fate as Lucius. We’re not sure what their motivations are, why they act the way they do, and why we should or shouldn’t desire their success or demise. Somehow the 2 ½ hour runtime makes the film seem slow while simultaneously feeling rushed in terms of developing characters.

Maligning Maximus

The most glaring abuse of Gladiator that Gladiator II commits is its basic premise. The original film is a tale of revenge. Maximus is betrayed by Marcus Aurelius’ evil son, his wife, and little boy are murdered, and he spends the whole film attempting to extract vengeance. In the end, though killed in the Colosseum, he manages to liberate Rome and avenge his family by killing Commodus, the evil usurper. His dying wish is to see his wife and son in the afterlife. 

Gladiator II undoes this entire narrative. 

The premise of the sequel is that Lucius, the grandson of Marcus Aurelius, is actually Maximus’ son. Being the same age as his own son from the first film, this means that Maximus was unfaithful to his wife and fathered a child with the emperor’s daughter. But the undermining of Maximus’ character doesn’t stop there. The point at the end of Gladiator is that with the death of Commodus, Rome will return to being ruled by the senate, and Lucius and his mother will be safe. But Gladiotr II takes place a mere sixteen years later on the premise that Lucius had to immediately flee Rome after Maximus’ death. So basically, Maximus’ death was pointless. 

Gladiator II retroactively turns the hero of one of the most beloved films about Ancient Rome into an unrespectable failure.

A Larger Trend

Gladiator II fits into a much larger trend demonstrating the profound inability of Hollywood studios to tell decent stories, create interesting characters, and connect their audiences to what they’re watching. Gone are the days of ruminating on the plot points of a particular film, discussing the morals being forwarded, or just talking about how “cool the action scenes were,” because, with CGI, they all feel the same.   

The secularization of film, partly due to the increased global market, has led to an insufferable moral grayness. A film like Gladiator II isn’t even trying to be gray, but the culture of Hollywood is so fraught with moral ambiguity that it’s unavoidable. 

The reason why so many of the films made during the “Golden Age of Hollywood” were so great was that they generally forwarded a clear moral vision, one integral to a society so steeped in Christianity. They were also made for people who held much more heritage in common. Everyday moviegoers knew the difference between right and wrong, and who the bad/good guys were.

Opportunities Presented by the Failure of Modern Cinema

While seeing stories that were compelling, interesting, and valuable become mangled and maligned into disinteresting CGI drivel is disheartening, it does provide two very specific opportunities. First, films like Gladiator II make the demand for quality, engaging, rich storytelling onscreen crystal clear. There are a host of exciting, interesting, gripping tales waiting to be told on the silver screen for those with the drive and/or resources to do so.

Second, lousy modern films present an excellent reason to rediscover classic films. Especially if you have kids, viewing films that were rooted in a Christian understanding of the world is an excellent pastime. Consider watching Ben-Hur with your family (it’s an excellent film to view at Christmastime). Discuss the characters. Talk about their motivations. Chat about the presentation of Christ in the film. Watch it alongside the original Gladiator, and talk about their similarities/differences.