THB #620: Gladiator II

I like Gladiator II for what it is. And I am sad about what it is not.

What it is is a giant spectacle of action and, as it’s rating explanation says, strong bloody violence… which makes me think each time I see this that the American advisory should be “strong fucking violence.” but it’s really too early in this review to digress to that.

The movie, as it is, is insanely simple. Our hero, Lucius (Paul Mescal), gets captured in an assault on his home town by the legions of Rome during which his warrior wife is killed. He thus becomes a slave. And when he shows fighting skill, he is made a G.I.T., Gladiator in Training. Denzel is Macrinus, a wealthy man in Rome who no one seems to notice is Black, who has a plan to bring down the emperors… twin brothers, one slightly less idiotic than the other. Lucius only really wants revenge for his wife’s death… who magically was killed by a single arrow from Pedro Pascal’s Marcus Acacius.

There is more to the story, but that is the basic set-up that…