I watched Gladiator 2 without ever having seen the original Gladiator

Yes. I will admit to the crime of watching a sequel without watching a prequel. Yes, this is my red flag. In fact, I’ll admit to being guilty of not having seen a lot of classic films like Pulp Fiction, Blade Runner, The Godfather Trilogy, and so many more. I am not proud of it, and as a cinephile, I know, it’s repulsive. I am definitely working on it.My defense — the original Gladiator is as old as I am. I wouldn’t have understood the film then; there are too many movies and shows being produced currently that I try hard to keep a track of, so watching an old classic is just a tad tough; I didn’t think it was the kind of genre I’m into — period films based in B.C. (Troy, 300); and finally, even though I wanted to watch the film before watching Gladiator 2, I intentionally chose not to.

People who saw the film over the weekend or at the festivals compared it to the original one — saying the first one was so much better. Considering the film has 2 of my favorite actors, I did not want to compare. I take pride in appreciating Pedro Pascal since his ‘The Mentalist’ or ‘Kingsman’ days. Got on the Paul Mescal train right after ‘Normal People’. So, I wanted to see the film as is. No comparisons.

Totally unrelated to Gladiator, but I had declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist, at least a decade before Taylor Swift did, and here we are. So you know, I recognize talent.

Of course, I briefed myself a little bit about the plot of the first one. What’s a Gladiator; who was Maximus, Lucilla, Lucius, Commodus; who died, why did they die, why are they fighting, the setting- the basics.

Be warn, spoilers ahead!

The tragedy that might entertain you

• This movie is one of the few, where Paul Mescal’s character lives. The only others include, The Lost Daughter, Carmen, and we’ll go 50–50 on Foe. That’s it. He dies in every other 4 films he has done. It’s also a part of the “Pedro Pascal’s character dies” filmography list, which includes Kingsman, Game of Thrones, upcoming season 2 of The Last of Us (unless they decide to make some drastic changes), and well, many more. His character’s death scene reminds me of the death of Bhishma Pitamaha from hindu mythology. Denzel Washington has a character death rate of 29% according to this article. This is important information because the fans and Mescal have talked a lot about how his characters die often, and I just wanted to point out that they paired 3 actors whose characters die a lot in the same film.

For the Indian audience — 2 scenes of beheadings are censored. They seemed weird and I doubt that they edited it that way, so the assumption seems to be censoring.

• Staying on Mescal’s theme — this movie is the first time his character had a healthy relationship with his partner, and they decided to end that relationship. LET THE MAN LIVE A LITTLE! Yes, I have seen all Mescal filmography. No, I am not obsessed, “he hasn’t done loads”, says Amelia Dimoldenberg, not me. I am just happy I get to be watching him build a career and grow as an actor as I am growing, in real time. Like how our parents would feel about Leo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Matt Damon. That’s how I feel about Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Tom Holland, Zendaya.
• Even though Russell Crowe was not in the movie, he was referenced from the first one in a lot of scenes as a flashback. In the last scene, they took inspiration from the iconic fingers swaying through the field scene by copying it, except they showed hands of an older man, hinting at Maximus, but never showing his face (even though for a second you think he’s going to show up like a Marvel film). What’s fun is before the film started they showed ‘Kraven the Hunter’s’ trailer featuring Russell Crowe, so it kinda felt like he was in the film.
• This might be the first film that Pedro Pascal and Joseph Quinn have both been a part of the same film, it won’t be the last. Marvel fans know that the duo is going to be sharing the same screen again in the upcoming Fantastic Four film, that is currently in production as Reed and Johnny. However, did you know the duo, at different times, also appeared in Game of Thrones. Pascal appeared as Oberyn Martell in Season 4, Quinn was Koner in season 7.

Would this be a bad time to share I haven’t watched Game of Thrones?!

• There is a Pedro Pascal statue that was built for the film. I never noticed it in the film, but my does it look very godly. There was also a very Mescal look-alike statue in the film which was beautiful. THAT MAN IS THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

The Montage, The Cinematography, Costumes, Make-Up, Set Decor, and Acting👍🏻

The first thing the film shows is a montage of the first film and in a way, its legacy. I just loved the animated montage. It was one of the most beautiful and a very unique montage. Whoever created that, bless them!

The film’s costumes, make-up (especially for the twins), set design was all amazing! I do think the direction could have been stronger, but the cinematography by John Mathieson is really beautiful. It felt like I was transported to 200 B.C. and I absolutely loved it.

Everyone’s acting was pretty top-notch. Washington played a perfectly creepy evil villain. This was a new territory for Mescal. Doing a big budget period-action film is very different for him. He has said it in the past that he would like to remain a drama actor, and I while he was great at playing Lucius, he does wonders in purely dramatic and well-written roles. He felt like Lucius, but it didn’t feel like Lucius was played by Paul Mescal, if that makes any sense. Connie Nelson was as graceful as ever. Hechinger and Quinn were a fantastic duo. Pascal was the best of them all. He also had the character with the most gravitas and I wish they had more scenes with him.

The writing 👎🏻

From someone who hasn’t seen the first film, but heard all about it, it felt like a repetition of events and story from the first one. The film was 150 minutes long. While Gladiator 2 was decently enjoyable, there could have been stronger editing, more cut to cut scenes, better direction, and better writing. I am no expert on movies, but I consume a lot of it. I understand the efforts it takes to make a film as big as this. So, I’m only going to point out the major reasons why ‘I’ didn’t think the writing was great.

• There was a scene where Lucius says “This is about survival. Survive.” as a pep talk. No shit Sherlock! That’s like saying “you’re thirsty, drink water” or “you’re hungry, you should eat”. Similarly there’s a line where he says, again, as a pep talk (which the man is really bad at), “where death is, we are not. Where we are death is not.” or something like that, and sure it’s an Epicurius quote, but man that’s so philosophical, that it’s beyond me. In simpler words, where toxic people are, I am not. Where I am, toxic people are not. Go figure.
• The twins Caracalla and Geta played by Fred Hechinger (who is brilliant in the film by the way) and Joseph Quinn, are absolutely mental. They show it, but it’s weird. They do things very randomly, and things that don’t make sense. Caracalla had an outburst all of a sudden, when it’s never shown before what he is dealing with. In the first two scenes featuring the twins, I didn’t even notice that there was a monkey, and later in the movie Caracalla names him second in command/counsel. Their acting was brilliant, but there was no character progression or development. It just went from a 1 to 7 really quick. Skipped all the numbers in between. There was no build up to the fact that Caracalla felt controlled by Geta, and then he suddenly decides to kill his brother. हैं ???
• The one time the writing and delivery was perfect, it was done by José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal (petition to make him cool like RDJ by calling him JPBP). He says “torture me, but don’t lecture me” to Geta, but his face said “your lecture is worse than torture”. Absolutely hilarious!
• I know Lucius was Commodus’ nephew, and that Maximus had a soft spot for Lucius and wanted him to be safe (those were literally his last words). He cared for him and Lucilla, he loved his family who were killed, and he was an honorable man. So when they reveal that Lucius is Maximus’ son, WELL THAT JUST DIDN’T SIT WELL WITH ME!! If it baffles me, I am sure it baffles the people who love the original film. That just doesn’t make sense. There was no need to explicitly convey that, even though it might have been intended in the first film. In-fact it’s completely fine for someone to not be a blood related father but have that kind of a relationship with them. We love Doc Brown and Marty’s relation, Joel and Ellie’s relation. Let it stay that way. There’s no need to add a bloodline to it. We love that Lucius considers Maximus someone who is strong and honorable, and someone he looks up to, there’s no need to strip him off that honor and just bluntly say it. They could have at least built up to it. There was literally 10% build up in the film.
• There was a scene where Macrinus, played by Denzel Washington asks Lucius, played by Mescal, “whose head could I give you to satisfy your fury?”. Lucius says “the entire Roman army”, to which Macrinus denies. Lucius then says “the General (Marcus Acacius, played by Pascal) will do”. All I could think at that moment was that they really should have come to India. We could have taught them ‘how to bargain?’. Lucius went from the entire army, to the commander in chief. We could have shown them that it’s a lot of back and forth. It shouldn’t have been that easy to convince Lucius to kill only one person vs the whole army. A demo of what a bargain looks like -

Lucius: Entire Roman Army

Macrinus: No

Lucius: 75% of the army…… emperors and 50% of the army…… 1 emperor and 40%?…….. General and 35%?……….. General and 20%?……. General???

Macrinus: Done

The Marketing and Press Tour👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Remember the Barbenheimer phenomenon last year? Well, It’s the Glicked phenomenon this year. It’s a battle between Wicked’s and Gladiator’s press tour. I don’t know which one is a bigger movie in terms of brand, but anticipating Wicked to be a bigger film in terms of revenue. However, I believe Paramount went all out with this Press Tour. In April, I said to a friend, that the 2 things (films related) that I was excited about, was when the press tour for Deadpool and Wolverine, and Gladiator 2 would begin. People love Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds. Them in the same room is fireworks. Now, Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal in the same room is like internet’s dear boyfriend and dear dad (let’s keep it respectful) are in the same room. The internet will explode, and explode it did. I could not wait for people to lose their minds over the chemistry of these 2 on the press tour. I made a video in October about how they need to put both Mescal and Pascal in the same interview rather than individual interviews. As soon as I was about to post it, I saw Entertainment Weekly drop an interview with them, and I said, “let the entertainment begin”. I thought all the interviews with the 2 of them would be just amazing, and while they were, Fred Hechinger came in and swooned the interviewers and the viewers. He was paired with Paul Mescal in a lot of interviews, and his sweet smile unlike his character’s creepy smile made all the interviews so much more fun! The one interview that got around a lot was the interviewer doing the X factor meme “whenever you’re ready”.

The Premiere in London was so beautiful. There were so many special, heart-warming moments- the person managing the Paul Mescal fan account actually meeting him, Paul’s family being there for him, Denzel Washington saying this movie should be called “Pedro”, Pedro saying how he is not going to miss Joseph because he is going to continue filming with him. Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc being present at the premiere representing Ferrari and its partnership with Paramount for Gladiator. Andrew Scott, Mescal’s All of Us Strangers cast mate being there for the love and support. I loved every bit of it. For me, the marketing made more impact than the film.

Ridley Scott made a decent film. Standalone, the movie is a good one-time-watch. Now you go watch this film, and I’ll go watch the first one now.