Strength and honour are the order of the day in Ridley Scott's gargantuan Gladiator 2. It's the sequel to Scott's triumphant, Oscar-winning Gladiator (2000) and returns us to the heyday of the Roman Empire in all its gilded, barbaric glory.
No one builds historical worlds quite like Scott does and the latest trailer promises a feast for the senses, full of close-quarters combat and intriguing political machinations. Normal People's Paul Mescal is our star and there's an A-list support crew ready to flesh out the environment.
Here's the preview in all of its glory.
1. It depicts a different kind of Rome from the one seen in Gladiator
The original Gladiator was set during the heyday of the Roman Empire and began with Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) and General Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe) seizing control of Germania. This helped cement Marcus Aurelius' dominion of the known world, but of course, it went south when he was murdered by his power-mad son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) who caused Maximus to be sold into slavery.
Gladiator 2 is set some 20 years later at a time when baboons and rhinos rampage around the Colosseum, and it's also a period in which the arena is filled with water – one gets a sense that the decadence of Rome is reaching an absurdist peak during the events of Gladiator 2. The use of the Colosseum for water battles does have a historical precedent, as does the film's use of two Emperors.
Joseph Quinn (A Quiet Place: Day One) and Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus) play the power-sharing Cain and Abel-style Emperor siblings Caracella and Geta, who existed in real life. Whether Gladiator 2 shows much fidelity to the historical record is unclear (this is, after all, a grand-scale Hollywood production) but in the film, the destiny of the two Caligula-esque brothers becomes intertwined with that of the enslaved (fictional) Lucius Verus (Paul Mescal).
What does this all mean in terms of decadent corruption and cruelty? It's hard to imagine a ruler worse than than Commodus, who was ultimately killed by Maximus in the arena, but one senses that the gladiators will be exposed to greater threats in the quest for exploitative entertainment that will keep the crowds happy.
2. It establishes Lucius as Maximus' son
Gladiator established Maximus as a loving husband and father who was waiting to meet his deceased family in the afterlife known as Elysium. However, there was a hint of a relationship between Maximus and Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the daughter of Marcus Aurelius and the sister of Commodus.
The exact nature of their past was somewhat unclear, although Lucilla was evidently driven by her powerful feelings for Maximus. The trailer for Gladiator 2 makes it explicitly clear that Lucilla's son Lucius, at one point the heir to the throne, is also Maximus' son, meaning that her and Maximus' union was more significant than we first thought.
This is a sneaky bit of retconning on the part of the filmmakers. Nowhere during the events of Gladiator was it hinted that Lucius was Maximus' son – they only shared one brief scene before Lucius bore witness to Maximus' body being carried out of the Colosseum during the finale.
3. Denzel Washington's slave owner doesn't look honorable...
Is Denzel effectively playing an antiquity variation on Detective Alonzo Harris from Training Day? Heck, we're up for that. Washington's character Macrinus has his origins in historical fact: he oversaw Rome's civil affairs during the reign of Emperor Caracella and he ultimately killed the Emperor to seize power.
Again, we're not expecting Gladiator 2 to act as a history lesson. However, the trailer displays echoes of real-life events when the seemingly ruthless Macrinus plans to use Lucius as his instrument in seizing power from the two Emperors, thus opening his way toward the throne.
4. ... Whereas Pedro Pascal's general does
At least, we're assuming so. Pascal plays General Marcus Acacius who enslaves Lucius and brings him to Rome. In the trailer, we get the hint that Acacius wants to atone for all the violence and chaos that ensues following Lucius' enslavement, to the extent that he appears willing to enter the ring and fight Lucius one-on-one to bring everything to a head.
It's not clear at this stage whether Pascal's character is a puppet of Macrinus and the Emperors, but we're hoping that the Internet's Favourite Daddy™ at least gets to show his noble side in his latest film.
5. Lucius adopts his father's physical and vocal mannerisms
"What we do in life echoes in eternity." So went the classic line from Gladiator, and the Gladiator 2 trailer picks up the mantle to deliberately echo the events from decades earlier. From Lucius citing his father's maxim "Strength and honour" to the double-sword head chop at the trailer's climax (it cuts away before we see the gory results), one can sense Maximus' fearsome yet gallant legacy implicitly coursing through his son's veins.
Gladiator 2 is released on November 15th. If you can't wait that long, click the link below to discover 2024's upcoming action films.
.jpg)
.png)
