They tend to say that once you’ve achieved perfection, it’s best to leave it alone. However, the same principle doesn’t necessarily apply when you’ve made something perfectly decent and solid enough to withstand the test of time, but perhaps not necessarily redefine a particular genre or style of filmmaking. Ridley Scott has made many films over the past fifty years, and many of them are timeless classics, appreciated by certain portions of the audience while not necessarily being all that daring in some cases. Gladiator is one such film which occupies the upper-mid tier of his body of work, being adored by certain viewers but otherwise being viewed as a solid return to the sword-and-sandals style. This genre was never viewed as particularly favourable but has its supporters. It seemed like it was just an attempt to explore the genre before moving on to something else, since Scott has proven to be an exceptionally curious director who will gleefully bounce between whatever genres he feels are worth his time and effort. However, we recently learned that this was not the last we’d see of the director leaping into Ancient Rome, as we now have Gladiator II, a direct sequel that once again places Scott at the helm (particularly interesting considering many of his previous films that received sequels, such as Alien and Blade Runner, were handed to other directors when it came time to return to those stories. In the case of Alien, it took Scott years to return to the helm of that franchise, proving that he was the best possible person to tell those stories), and allowing him the chance to explore this particular era in history once again. Set sixteen years after the events of the previous film, Gladiator II follows a mysterious young soldier who is sold as a slave and taken to Rome after his homeland in Northern Africa is invaded by the empire, while he is initially viewed as a gruff novice, he proves to be unexpectedly effective at combat, which catches the attention of many of Rome’s highest ranking officials, who are intent on getting their hands on this exciting new acquisition to their city. Essentially following the same cues as its predecessor, Gladiator II is solid but unremarkable, offering us the expected thrills but not much else, which leads to quite a one-dimensional experience at the best of times.

Gladiator II exists at the peculiar intersection of being both a direct follow-on from the previous film, and a legacy sequel, with some characters recurring while others are introduced here, which creates quite an interesting blend of personalities that populate the film. Based on the events of the prior film, the protagonist logically could not return, and instead, we are introduced to NAME, the valiant and dedicated soldier-turned-slave-turned-gladiator who acts as the anchor for this story. The role is handed to Paul Mescal in what we can only view as the continued attempt to turn him into one of the most popular young actors of his generation, which is made even more clear when we realize that he was severely miscast in the film, failing to bring the same genuine bravado and salt-of-the-earth grit as Russell Crowe, whose performance in Gladiator is considered as the moment he leapt to the upper-echelons of the film industry. Mescal is a talented actor, and while it is understandable that giving him the central role in a big action epic would be a strong boost to his career, he’s always thrived with more complex, meaningful characters with strong motives, rather than the hollow, vapid lead of a film that doesn’t have too much interest in developing his character beyond the bare minimum. The better performances are found in the supporting cast – Connie Nielsen returns from the first film, having a similarly substantial role as the unofficial matriarch of Rome, while Derek Jacobi proves he can flourish with even the most paltry of material. Two of the more interesting additions to this film are Pedro Pascal (perhaps the only person who feels like he truly fits in this film, mainly because he has an abundance of experience in productions inspired by history, as well as his fair share of action-oriented projects) and Denzel Washington, the latter reuniting with Scott after quite some time, and while he is essentially playing the same kind of brooding patrician we often see him portray, he is still undeniably captivating, even with such a thinly-written character. Fred Hechinger and Joseph Quinn are also strong additions to the supporting cast, but the film struggles to do anything particularly interesting with them once the initial novelty of their performances wears off, one of the many questionable choices that linger throughout this otherwise middling film.

Leading on from the relatively lacklustre (but still solid) performances, we find that another major issue with Gladiator II is that it doesn’t say anything of value, at least in comparison to the previous film. A sequel should either be creative enough to reinvent (or simply creatively reinterpret) the themes of the original, or do something that may directly follow the previous film, but in a way that is at least interesting. This film does neither – it depends too much on the existing film and what audiences remember about it but also doesn’t honour it by continuing the story in a logical and meaningful way. Instead, it requires the viewer to draw on their nostalgia for the previous film, going back twenty-five years to when we first encountered that story, and hoping that this will be sufficient for another film when in reality this has rarely worked entirely well. Scott has moments of ingenuity throughout the film, especially when he’s negotiating his disregard for historical accuracy with the real-life events that inspired the film, which creates an intriguing contrast and keeps us guessing which moments are fabrications and which are drawn from reality. These are the aspects of Gladiator II that feel most compelling, but unfortunately, they’re too few and far between to be entirely effective. Instead, Scott oscillates between over-the-top action sequences (more on that in a moment) with overwrought commentary on Roman society, which was also the foundation for Gladiator, but to a far more reasonable degree. This film cannot decide whether it wants to be a thorough account of Ancient Roman society or simply a wall-to-wall cavalcade of action, but in both instances, it’s not at all effective. It becomes quite lacklustre after a while, which is certainly very unfortunate considering the potential to do something intriguing with this material. While laziness may not be the term we’d use to describe his process (especially since he’s as full of vigour and dedication to his craft today as he was half a century ago), Scott does fall behind when it comes to narrative richness, and while this can be effective in some of his other films, it makes something like Gladiator II extremely hollow.

However, for all of his shortcomings as a storyteller (part of which also falls to writer David Scarpa, who doesn’t implement the director’s ideas into the narrative creatively enough, and who had the unenviable task of taking over the role of scribe, since he original writers John Logan, William Nicholson and David Franzoni were not involved), Scott maintains an enormous skillfulness as a visual craftsman, and he certainly goes above-and-beyond when directing this film, which is a dazzling array of bold ideas and impressive setpieces, each one of them extremely entertaining in their own right. This is where Scott flourishes, and there can be an argument made that the reason this film falters is precisely because he expends too much energy on the spectacle, and in the process loses sight of the actual substance that would act as the connective tissue between these moments of grandiosity. Nonetheless, it’s impossible to not be entranced by this film when it is at the peak of its action, with the director taking the opportunity to take the story in some unexpected directions, some of which have roots in history, such as the widely discussed scene where the Coliseum is flooded and the gladiators have to fight sharks, or another memorable moment where a group of fighters goes up against a rhinoceros, which does show that there was some effort in doing something different with the material, albeit not in a way that ever feels entirely cohesive when it comes to unpacking the narrative and what it represents. Scott is the definition of style over substance, and Gladiator II drives this in even further, becoming exceptionally clear that it has very little interest in pursuing anything even vaguely daring or exciting, instead choosing to be more visually appealing than intellectually provocative. To his credit, Scott never promised to make something historically accurate or even particularly strong when it comes to its contextual framework, so once we view it as such, we discover the true intentions and how they’re exactly what was delivered for the most part.

As is often the case with Scott,you get exactly what you pay for when venturing into Gladiator II – its clear, unambiguous filmmaking that is built on the simplest of premises and which offers precisely what we expect from a sword-and-sandals epic made in the contemporary era. It attempts to be as much an intellectual exercise as it is a spectacle, but it all feels very halfhearted and middling when it comes time to follow through on its many bold ideas. It’s not particularly daring, and it finds Scott resting on his laurels (pun intended) when voyaging back into these themes, which feels somewhat dull and predictable but is essentially what we should anticipate from any late-career endeavour from a director who is often viewed as simply working for the sake of staying busy, rather than wanting to say anything of value. In terms of both its underlying themes and how they manifest, Gladiator II is purely entertaining, but not much else. The storyline is hollow at the best of times, the thematic content is quite weak and the overall experience does not have any real value outside of being a big-budget action epic that wants to be enjoyable long before it provokes thought. It’s not entirely wasteful, and it has its moments of brilliance, but they are concealed under layers of predictable, meandering storytelling that doesn’t do anything particularly revolutionary and ultimately feels quite lacklustre in nearly every area, offering us some visually striking setpieces, but lacks when it comes to proper characterization (particularly when it comes to making use of this genuinely compelling, talented cast of actors that deserved much better than these thinly-written archetypes) or anything entirely daring in terms of narrative nuances, which ultimately prove to be far too scattered to leave much of an impression.