Gladiator 2:  Ridley Scott's return to the thrilling, bloody, dark universe. 

A Review by Luke Beman

Gladiator 2 is the sequel to the critically acclaimed Gladiator movie. Released in 2000, it grossed $465,516,248 and won 24 awards years later, the sequel, featuring Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, and Denzel Washington, has arrived. 

Marketed as an action movie, one would think the movie would have an abundance of action and gore, however the film only had a few action scenes. There were only 30 minutes worth of fight scenes in the 2 hours 30-minute film. However, the action scenes did deliver on the gore factor, with a $30 million budget (IMDB), the special effects were mostly clean and very realistic. 

When it comes to the pros of the film, the acting was fabulous. It truly brought the Roman culture to life, and the dramatism brought by everyone was stupendous, featuring heart and soul from Pedro Pascal (General Acasius), Paul Mesca (Lucius), as well as Connie Nielson (Lucilla). 

The cinematography from Director Ridley Scott was beautiful. He made the film as colorful as possible, bringing in the gold and dark red aesthetic from Gladiator, and featuring crisp and clear action and drama shots. It was truly breathtaking. 

As for the cons, the film was a great example of a modern-day drama film whose goal is not humor, but instead seriousness, with the exception of one scene, where they had a pet chimpanzee as the ruler of Rome. Since the film had little humor otherwise, it appeared Ridley Scott put it in as a serious part of the film, due to the joke not being set up well. 

Another con was one scene that featured truly terrible props. In this scene, one of the brothers that ruled Rome, played by Joseph Quinn, is decapitated by Denzel Washington and has his head shown to the room in order to spread fear. The prop is only seen for two minutes, however it appears extremely fake. This lack of effort was disappointing in an otherwise well made film. Gladiator 2 was a rare example of a sequel being good, and was a true highlight of an action film for 2024.  

Overall I would rate this film an 8 out of 10.