Gladiator II: Criticized for Historical Errors and Lack of Charisma

Gladiator II: When Rome is Filmed in the Bronx

A rhinoceros with stirrups. An English inscription at the Colosseum. A protagonist playing football with makeshift goals and a rag ball. And a Roman general reading the newspaper in a cafe. The sequel directed by Ridley Scott, released more than two decades after the original, has triggered a flood of complaints that go far beyond personal taste: historical errors, flat characters, and the feeling that the film relies on the memory of the first part to sell tickets. The most repeated diagnosis is blunt: there is no goal in the plot nor anything engaging.

The comparison with the original is the axis of almost all criticisms. The first installment, despite its liberties, stands as an masterpiece for much of the audience who saw it at the time: a simple story, almost epic, with a protagonist whose thirst for revenge is understood and shared. The sequel, however, is perceived as a copy-paste without charisma, with a Lucius who fails to fill the void left by Maximus Decimus Meridius. The lingering question is simple: who would think of making a Gladiator without Maximus?

Historical errors visible to the naked eye

The inventory is meticulous. The action takes place in the early third century, around 200 AD, and within the first minutes, a garden appears with tomato plants and pumpkins, American crops that would not reach Europe until many centuries later. The ships seen are biremes, typical of Greece five centuries earlier, when Rome used quinqueremes. The mix of clothing ranges from the fifth century BC to 300 AD without apparent criteria.

There is more. A domesticated rhinoceros with stirrups, when the stirrup was not generalized in the West until much later. An English inscription at the Colosseum. A character who moves and speaks as if he were in the Bronx. And a Lucius who plays goalkeeper in football, with a rag ball and goals, or who shoots a crossbow at a Roman general. The accumulation turns viewing into an exercise in involuntary archaeology.

The cast: Denzel Washington as the best of a weak ensemble

The most repeated consensus points to Denzel Washington as the only one holding his own. His character, a slave trader wielding power in Rome, is considered unbelievable in context, but performed with craft. Even those who praise him qualify: even though the character is bad, it is the best thing about the movie. Others criticize him for walking and speaking like a modern rapper, when the role demanded gravity and solemnity.

The rest of the cast receives harsher criticism. The emperors, two blond and powdered figures, barely string together two words. The archer woman accompanying the protagonist falls into pastiche: the first arrow thrown at her hits her without her knowing how to dodge. And the protagonist, in repeated words, has zero charisma from the first second on screen. The general feeling is that the supporting actors are below even an already weak script.

Is Gladiator II propaganda or just a bad product?

Part of the analysis goes beyond cinematic quality and argues that the film is part of an attempt to humiliate European history. It is argued that the choice of a racially diverse cast and the caricature of Rome seek to demoralize the Western viewer. This is a thesis circulating strongly in certain circles, but it should be underlined as what it is: an ideological interpretation, not a proven fact. Another current, more pragmatic, reduces the problem to incompetence: a director shooting a superproduction every year who no longer feels like working.

The theory that Ridley Scott's recent films have been made by a ghostwriter—and he merely lends his name—circulates as a recurring joke. The data feeding it: previously he took years per film; now he chains annual releases of questionable quality. His last work considered good here would be The Martian, in 2015.

Current cinema in the crosshairs

The discontent with Gladiator II fits into a broader complaint about the industry. It is claimed that cinema reflects society's regression: increasingly stupid movies for an increasingly stupid public, everything pre-chewed, with CGI and chained explosions like a ninety-minute music video. The blame, according to a current citing Tarantino, lies with Marvel and superhero cinema, not as a consequence but as a cause of infantilization.

Against this, some rescue minor products that fulfill their function better. The comparison with Hercules (2014), directed by Brett Ratner, proves revealing for several: a movie that seemed trash beforehand is considered infinitely more entertaining and coherent than Scott's superproduction. There are even those who prefer the other Hercules of the same year, with Scott Adkins as the villain, directed by Renny Harlin.

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The disorienting datum is not from the film, but from the box office: with this level of rejection, the question is not whether there will be a third part, but why the studio seems determined to make it. Confirmed: they are going for the third.