Gladiator II’s Greatest Sin Is That It Focuses on the Wrong Character – IGN

Gladiator II: More of the Same

Gladiator II’s biggest selling point – and its greatest flaw – is that it seeks to give viewers more of what they loved in the original Gladiator. It once again tells the story of a formerly proud Roman brought low and forced to survive in the bloodthirsty world of gladiatorial combat. As before, that lowly gladiator wins the hearts and minds of the Roman public and winds up threatening the emperor’s tenuous grip on power. And once more, it all culminates in a life-or-death duel between our heroic gladiator protagonist and his power-hungry foe.

All of this serves to make Gladiator II feel overly familiar and downright predictable. Not only does the story of Paul Mescal’s Hanno/Lucius mirror that of Russell Crowe’s Maximus, the film recycles many of the same visual motifs. Once again, we see flashbacks of Maximus running his hand through a field of grain and shots of Lucius sampling the rocky soil of the arena. The sequel assumes a certain reverence for the tropes of the original Gladiator that doesn’t necessarily exist.

Gladiator II’s one real nod toward novelty is to effectively break up the Maximus archetype into two separate characters. Lucius’ arc unfolds alongside that of Pedro Pascal’s Marcus Acacius. Like Maximus, Acacius is an elite Roman general who believes in the “dream that was Rome,” a dream that winds up costing him everything by the end of the film. Instead of one gladiator hero, we’re given two characters to root for (even as one obsesses over the death of the other).

The real problem here is that neither character is as compelling as Crowe’s Maximus. Not only does Lucius’ story feel like a retread of Maximus’, Mescal simply doesn’t measure up to Crowe, an actor who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Maximus. He makes for a perfectly cromulent underdog hero, to be sure, but Mescal lacks the same charisma and ability to dominate the screen. We’re told Lucius is a creature of rage, yet that rage is rarely apparent in Mescal’s performance. Again, he comes across as a Maximus-lite.

Nor does Acacius make up for these shortcomings in his role as the secondary protagonist. Again, Pascal is perfectly fine in the part, but the movie only gives him so much to work with. He’s an underdeveloped foil to Lucius. It’s almost a relief when Acacius is finally killed off and the focus is able to shift entirely to Lucius again.

There’s also the idea that Gladiator II’s ending rings a little hollow for anyone even vaguely familiar with the real-world history fueling the film. Gladiator II is not a particularly historically accurate movie, even if many of the principal players are based on real Roman figures. The real Lucius died as a boy. He certainly didn’t grow up to inspire a populist uprising and slay an aspiring emperor, thereby restoring democracy to the Republic. By the time period seen in Gladiator II, the Roman Empire was already well on the path to its decline and fall.

So the feelgood ending of the film, with Lucius taking his place as the once and future prince of Rome, rings pretty hollow. There’s nothing in Rome’s future but strife, disease, and misery at this point. It’s enough to make us wonder what Scott actually has planned for his proposed third Gladiator movie. Does the series become full-on historical fantasy at that point?

Ultimately, the takeaway here is that Lucius simply wasn’t the ideal choice of protagonist. He’s an inferior retread of Crowe’s Maximus, and that limits the movie’s effectiveness. But it didn’t have to be this way. Gladiator II had the compelling, unique protagonist it needed all along. Not Lucius or Acacius, but Denzel Washington’s Macrinus.

The Appeal of Denzel Washington’s Macrinus

Frankly, Washington would have been the comprehensive solution to all of Gladiator II’s problems. If the goal is to anchor the film around a performance every bit as compelling and nuanced as Crowe’s was in 2000, Washington is your guy. He’s widely regarded as one of the greatest living American actors for a reason. His filmography is mighty impressive, whether he plays the hero or the villain.

As it is, Washington utterly dominates the screen whenever he does appear in Gladiator II. Like any good Washington performance, there’s a certain amount of scenery chewing involved here. Macrinus is a larger-than-life figure who looms over everyone around him, even the twin emperors of Rome. Yet Washington contrasts that with moments of quiet contemplation and even levity. Gladiator II is notably more comedic than its predecessor, and Macrinus is a major part of that. Even the simplest lines like “Too much!” become fascinating and hilarious when delivered by Washington.

If anyone walks away from Gladiator II with an Academy Award nomination, it’s going to be Washington. So it’s a shame, then, that he’s a supporting player and eventual villain in the film rather than the story’s central character. How much better would Gladiator II have been if Macrinus, not Lucius, were the main protagonist?

It would certainly make for a very different sequel, and different in a way the film desperately needed to be. In a basic sense, Macrinus’ story isn’t so different from that of Maximus or Lucius. Like them, he was once a slave who won his freedom through gladiatorial combat. But where Maximus became a heroic martyr and Lucius now seems intent on salvaging the Republic, Macrinus is a far more selfish figure. He’s achieved great wealth as an arms dealer and slave trader, and now he seeks greater levels of power. First as an adviser to the emperors of Rome, then as emperor himself.

It’s a shame that Gladiator II only alludes to Macrinus’ past in the arena, because that’s a story I’d very much enjoy seeing play out on screen. What incredible victories did he accomplish? What adversity did he face? And most importantly, what tragedies shaped him into the man he becomes – one hellbent on achieving ultimate power at the expense of everyone around him? How does a man go from slave to aspiring emperor? Those are questions Gladiator II never truly answers.

Again, a version of Gladiator II starring Macrinus would have made for a very different and far more compelling sequel. Instead of following a noble hero who sees the best in Rome and its people, we’d have a movie about a far more morally questionable protagonist who aims to burn Rome to the ground as a means of seizing power. It wouldn’t hit the same notes as the first Gladiator, and that’s exactly the point.

There’s also the fact that the real, historical Macrinus did achieve his goal of becoming emperor, however brief his reign lasted. Rather than treating Macrinus as the final boss for Lucius to vanquish, I’d love to have seen a Gladiator movie that explores what happens after Washington’s character achieves his life’s great ambition. How does a man as driven as Macrinus react when he finally triumphs over every opponent? How does he lose it all? And in a time when it seems like nations all over the world are flocking to populist, rightwing leaders over traditional politicians, what does the rise and fall of Macrinus have to say about our modern world?

If you’re going to return to a beloved Hollywood property 24 years later, you need to do so with a story worth telling. I don’t really think the shared saga of Lucius Verus Aurelius and Marcus Acacius is that story. It results in a sequel that hits a lot of familiar beats but does nothing to break new ground. But it didn’t have to be this way. Gladiator II could have taken a very different and more compelling direction had it recognized that Macrinus is truly the most fascinating player on this board. But I suppose there’s always room for a prequel…

What do you think? Should Gladiator II have focused on Washington’s character? Cast your vote in our poll and let us know in the comments below.

For more on this Gladiator sequel, check out our Gladiator II ending explained and our rundown of the 10 worst emperors in pop culture.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.