User Reviews

Ridley Scott’s *Gladiator II*—serving as a sequel to his original *Gladiator* film from 2000—is equally lavishly staged, monumental, and packed with spectacular combat sequences. In this respect, the second installment yields nothing to its predecessor. Yet, as is so often the case with sequels, the standard by which they are measured remains the original film—particularly when that film happens to be a milestone in cinematic history. Regrettably, with this sequel, Ridley Scott seems to have been unable to escape the pressure of expectation—the pressure to create another cinematic milestone by simply incorporating even more spectacle. However, by featuring great white sharks in the Colosseum, he ultimately does little more than pander to his audience’s fantasies of violence—much in the same way the emperors of old once did. When making a direct comparison to the original film, one must also acknowledge certain compromises regarding the casting of the lead actors. Nevertheless, it remains a formidable historical epic—one well worth watching, if only for its truly superb sets and sequences.

One of the biggest pieces of junk movies I have ever seen, and that's with going in with an open mind.

Literally the same story with new things added. But it's the same recipe. Of course Pedro Pascal has to be in this movie also.

Beautiful Movie, Such a Great Story and Masterpiece!!! The Movie is Awesome From the Beginning to the End... Rating 10/10

The film is perfectly in line with the first installment in terms of setting, tone, narrative style, and composition, making it a successful sequel that is in keeping with the saga and doesn't attempt to overhaul anything. The plot is enjoyable from start to finish, even if it's rather simple and at times banal, almost as if it's trying to avoid taking risks, but it stops at the homework. It doesn't offer any great thrills, it doesn't add anything new, the story is quite similar to the previous installment, but it's a good diversion.

This is a somewhat worthy successor to the original film; however, it falls a bit short. The main issue is that it tries to do too much, and in the end, it feels rushed and forced. Despite that, I had a lot of fun watching it. The casting is great, and so are the characters. It’s packed with action, and there are many different fight scenes. Something that stood out to me is that, after so many years since the original, the visual effects somehow feel cheaper. It should be the other way around.

This film feels like a poor imitation of HBO's Rome, compressed into a single, illogical movie. Denzel Washington's performance, while strong, can't salvage the chaotic plot.

Pretty much the same as Gladiator I. Of course nice story (even a bit complexer one), good fights, some good dialogues. But in in end most of that is already known from the first part, which by the way, have a (small) connection to the second part. Also the plot "lost son found - became the hero" like in star wars and so many other movies is a bit shabby.

“Gladiador II” retoma a mitologia de Roma mais de duas décadas depois do original, centrando-se em Lucius (Paul Mescal), agora adulto, forçado a entrar na arena enquanto lida com a opressão dos novos detentores do poder. Ridley Scott entrega um épico de legado: visualmente impressionante, com sequências de ação grandiosas e momentos de intensidade emocional, mas que luta para atingir a mesma profundidade temática e ressonância moral do primeiro filme. Paul Mescal carrega o papel com uma mistura de raiva contida e vulnerabilidade, e Denzel Washington surge como um sopro de energia e carisma que eleva partes do filme. Pedro Pascal e Connie Nielsen acrescentam camadas, embora alguns personagens sofram por desenvolvimento desigual. O roteiro, por vezes, soa repetitivo ou excessivamente reverente ao original, fazendo da sequência mais uma “celebração” do que uma reinvenção; ainda assim, funciona como entretenimento épico com momentos memoráveis.

Podríamos renombrar la película como Gladiator II: Tiburones en Roma. Aburrida a mas no poder, el protagonista mezcla acento británico con acento irlandés para un personaje africano con una actuación terrible como si estuviera en escuela de teatro. Da la sensación de que el guión hubiera sido escrito por estadounidenses, en el peor sentido de la palabra. Historia y argumento superficial, vacío, aburrido, incongruente, sin respetar la historia original y que intenta suplir todas las carencias con CGI, tiburones y fuegos artificiales. Spoiler: no funciona

Awful pacing. Genuinely this movie could have been an hour shorter. Any scene with Ravi can be cut. CGI animals are not good and their behavior doesn’t make any sense. Acting was subpar. Film soundtrack was lack luster. Hanno’s character arch fell short. Overall disappointing.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Gladiator II is entirely built of empty clichés. Take any theme you’ve ever heard about power, revenge, corruption, honor, and Gladiator II will have pages of dialogue trying to encapsulate it in a neat little line.

The gladiator 2 was good. I wasn’t disappointed with the sequel. I really enjoyed the fighting scenes and the acting was great. Denzel did a great job minus the Roman accent. Nonetheless, phenomenal job by the cast. I would recommend this for a watch.

Astounded to see respected reviewers give this a positive review. The script seems written by the AI prompt “be sure to include every tired sequel cliche, make the dialog wooden and unrealistic, and be totally predictable.” Pedro Pascal is wasted here, and his performance is sleepy and lacks any fire. The two emperors are cartoonish and ridiculous, and i feel like Ridley Scott is deliberately insulting his audience for buying this dreck. While Mescal and Denzel deliver good performances, this is clearly a money job for Denzel, and it shows. The most disheartening thing about this is the decent reviews from professional critics… i’ll never give a second look at any review by those that praised this garbage; they either lack ethics or taste. Even the spectacle elements are insultingly bad; the CGI baboons were laughably phony; was using real animals too much trouble for Scott? I’d call this a top contender for worst (and most insulting to the audience) film ever made.

Cómo tomar una de las mejores películas de la historia y destruirla con una continuación que nadie necesitaba aderezada con inclusión innecesaria.

This movie, in its entirety, in every aspect possible, is a direct insult to the excellent 1st movie and it completes Ridley Scott's downfall. It cannot be deemed as a failure but a deliberate catastrophe of lousyiness in my opinion. No further wording is enough for this atrocity so I stop here.

Is like Riddley Scott is just being handled by some millenials that do all the work for him... and he just signs the end product.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Filmão as críticas são descabidas!!! Filme bem dirigido,atuações,para mim um filme super digno!!!

A visually pretty film without the heart of its predecessor. Worth watching, would have been better had it gone by any other name. Denzel is superb, as always, and the movie as a whole is well-acted. A guy rides a rhino, which is pretty rad.

This movie has it all from a negative perspective. Historical discrepancies (Africa Nova etc.), poor acting, poor casting, garbage script writing and it should never have been made. It's a disgrace to the original.

Nach 30 Minuten hatte ich genug. Wirkt ein bischen verpfuscht! Die schauspielerische Leistung und Regie ist unbefriedigend. Ist das Orginal von großen Erfolg gekrönt, sollte es solche Fortsetzungen nicht geben.

Overall feels average. The movie has cool action & battle scenes, nice costumes. The story/plot, direction, dialogues feels average. You can skip this one, won't be a huge miss.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Gladiator II is a disappointing, unnecessary, and inferior sequel. The story is a complete retread of the first movie, with the revenge plot, evil rulers to overthrow, and a gladiator who rises up to inspire the people. The only real difference is that everything is just worse.Paul Mescal is fine, but he's not as great as Russell Crowe. The evil emperors are fine, but they're not as great as Joaquin Phoenix. The music score is fine, but it's not as great as what Hans Zimmer did for the first. The cinematography is fine, but it's not remotely as gorgeous as it was in the original. The film lacks any real originality and keeps leaning on flashbacks and dialogue from Maximus in the first movie. I just couldn't care about any of the **** does have some cool gladiator battles, and Denzel is a pretty fun villain—but that's really it. Do better, Ridley Scott!

... and the echo RESOUNDS, with strength as it's own film and honor to the original. COLOSSAL - JAW-DROPPING - HEROIC - MAGNIFICENT I thought the sheer scale of Gladiator was peak... but Gladiator II takes it to a BIBLICAL SCALE. Dare I say... colossal... they just don't make movies like this anymore. A million extras. All in costume. Sets the size of cities. This really connects to the first film. It actually makes it feel as though Gladiator was incomplete, but in a natural way, and Gladiator II carries on the story seamlessly. There were so many reference points to the original film's plot-line, it almost created a sort of pattern... but in a good, ancestor-descendant, follow-in-the-footsteps sort of way. Gladiator II still makes plenty of its own unique plot points. The twin emperors. The gladiator owner with a different motive. The different types of fight scenes and battles in the arena. --- SPOILER ALERT --- A great example is the eluding to Hanno's death throughout with the afterlife scenes, but it's a fresh take that he doesn't die in the end. For such a huge film, the cast is surprisingly small. Mescal and Pascal lead, with Neislen and Washington close behind; Quinn and Hechinger take supporting roles. Mescal is actually the perfect man to cast as Hanno... too much to say, but he's got this face-set-like-a-flint look, and it's perfect. Neilsen steps back into her role confidently, the only main character to return from the original film (ha, because all the other o.g. characters are dead). The twin emperors definitely have the childish Commodus vibe... Quinn brings this wide-eyed, crazed look, while Hechinger has a foolish air about him... but, perhaps too much so. I wanted to see their effect on the empire more directly and their power that has maintained their ruling status for so long. Washington's performance had some moments that felt too modern and casual to be Ancient Rome... he needed to be more... set in the time period to be more believable. Perhaps in this wonderfully overwhelming scale... some of the emotion is lost in favor of more action, more blood. The chemistry between Mescal and Connie as son and mother was just bursting, but felt held back just a bit. Another scene with them could have really anchored this in that emotion from the first film. Even so, Gladiator II still held this... rage and resolve underscoring the whole story; just a different type of emotion. Of course, to address those points (emperors' impact & added emotion) would take up more screen time. But I was so ready for this film to be a solid 3hrs long... I wish it was... This sequel definitely redeemed the cheesy special effects/afterlife scenes from its predecessor. Seeing the afterlife through Lucius' vision was unique from Maximus' perspective, and painfully poetic. ... my main critique was actually the score. I was really looking forward to the score, but I don't think Gregson-Willaims could quite live up to Zimmer's masterpiece. I wasn't sure who was scoring the film until the opening credits, and felt significant disappointment that Zimmer was not returning to score. Speaking of the opening credits... Ridley needs to open ALL of his films like that. Holy crap. That is ART. And the title card? Don't even get me started. This film had my jaw-dropped from that exact moment on. For those of you who missed Dune: Part Two in IMAX/Dolby... DO. NOT. MISS THIS ONE.

From the get-go, experienced movie goers would notice the trebuchets are from kingdom of the heaven movie set. I was kinda disturbed by how historically inaccurate it was, but i stopped bothering with historic settings in first 20 minutes into the movie. Its a fantasy film based on another planet in another time with aesthetically similarities with earth's Roman Empire. Does it lives up to the first movie? Hell no. Does it complement the first movie? No. Would the fans of the first movie would like this movie? Nope. Ridley Scott is a bambling old fool now.

A talented cast doesn't make up for the fact that this is a shallow rehashing of the original film. There is a heavy reliance on CGI, most of which doesn't look good. The action scenes feel boring and repetitive. And no offence to Paul Mescal, who is solid here, but he is no Russell Crowe.

Es una peli entretenida y hasta ahí. No está al nivel de la primera parte pero no creo que sea justo el que se le ha dado.

I can usually find at least one thing that a film does well, but in this case I could not. Things that were noticeably poor about it - the casting, plot, writing, acting, directing, cinematography, fight choreography, sets, costumes, music, sound effects, CG, desperate references to the first film, blatant anachronisms, opening title sequence. Did I miss anything?

For me it's a very good done part 2. In the last time there was no good movies, if you know the first one you will enjoy that one too.

not bad sequel to a original movie that did not need any follow-up movie. worth a watch.

I need to recognize beforei start the review, that i didn't expected nothing for this uncalled for ****,after an eye rolling first sequence, and once the story really started, i founs a pleasent guilty pleasure, full of CGI monkeys, impossible water colisseum, game of thrones politics and a surprising well anvhored link to the first one, of sorts... Denzel washington is having a ball in there, and all the ithers are pretty ok, having in consideration what they have to play **** of course, it will never be more than a pasable exercise in entertainment, and I doubt its looking for to be anything else. 6.5/10

Originally, I considered this movie to be a 5 1/2 or a 6, but watch it more than once. Pay attention to the details. Paul Mezcal is a terrific actor, and he's the highlight of the movie. This is NOT the same movie as the first, and that's a good thing. Joaquin Phoenix really stole the show in the first film, and that was nearly impossible to top, but it doesn't mean this movie doesn't have its merits. The stakes and the moral of the film are on a very different level here. Peter Mensah & Pedro Pascal are very welcome additions to this movie.

An epic, action-packed followup to "Gladiator". Paul Mescal plays a fearless Lucius, and Denzel Washington is as likable as ever in his role as a former gladiator who won his freedom and is now one of the biggest arms dealers and businessmen in Rome vying for power. Fred Hechinger as Emperor Caracalla gives serious Joaquin Phoenix-as-Commodus vibes. It's extravagant, littered with special effects, full of the bloody gladiatorial arena action we all love and crave, and, of course, heavy doses of drama are sprinkled throughout. Well worth the wait!

I went into Gladiator with low expectations as I am a die-hard fan of Roman history and epics and consider the first Gladiator movie to be one of the best of all time. Upon watching it, I immediately saw that the first action sequence lacked the realism and gravitas of the first movie, but to be completely honest, the first third of the movie was not bad. I was almost considering giving it a second watch or recommending it based on pure spectacle until about halfway through. The movie recycles everything the first movie did; the action sequences are exaggerated and heavily squandered by CGI and feel like a cheap imitation. The story barely makes sense and sloppily goes through the motions of trying to make you care about the protagonist. It almost felt like it belonged in the world of Spartacus Blood and Sand on Starz rather than the original Gladiator due to its lower-tier acting and production value. Overall, I would say if you love the first one, give it a try for **** and giggles but don’t expect to be blown away.

Denzel Washington carries this and knocks his role out of the park per usual. He is the best part of the movie and I'm including the spectacular action scenes, of which there are many. The plot falls flat for me as Lucius from the movies was a pretty sharp kid. He would not forget who he was or get some kind of traumatic amnesia. The plot against the two idiot emperors was also ill-contrived, but it did yield a great death scene for Pedro Pascal. Nice attempt to follow-up what is one of the best sword and sandal picks ever made (with my man-crush Russel Crowe in it), but it falls short of the original. Still a fun watch. Gladi-yee-ator!

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Denzel can't save this predictable mess. Bad casting, too much CGI, and a poorly-paced script bring it down.

Well I expected something better, since first Gladiator was really great. This felt like it tries to match it at many things or repeat some of things there and well basically was lacking

I can't imagine anyone that #1 likes the first film, and #2 has a brain in their head, could enjoy this movie. It's an idiotic hacky (at least compared to the first film) mess, with unending historical inaccuracies. Totally illogical and ridiculous. Mescal does a mediocre Russell Crowe impression, and that's the most positive thing i have to say about the movie.

Disappointingly average (final?) outing for Ridley and his crew. There is some outstanding cinematography and kinetic action scenes weakened by its weak plot, limited screenplay and effective rehashing of the original movies plot. That aside, it was a fairly entertaining watch with some detailed visual effects shots and action choreography.

While obviously falling short of the original, Gladiator II is still an epic visual showcase with an intriguing story, flashy characters, and a series of propulsively exciting action set pieces. Not to mention Denzel Washington's standout performance. It is easily Ridley Scott's best historical epic since Kingdom of Heaven.

Some great action scenes redeem bad writing or cringe acting the film offered offered nothing new in the soundtrack aspect sadly which made the first film so memorable the first film had some amazing actors now sadly passed

High expectations because of how good the first movie was. The main actor is terrible, Pedro Paschoal and Denzel Washington probably regreted doing it. Poor production, there was parts that the scene was cuted with no **** looks a poor made independent movie. Skip you you can. Also a day after it was release for streaming it is 50% off on Vudu. 14.99

Gladiator II" is the most disappointing sequel ever! It not only fails to capture the essence of the original but also the film's plot is a rehash of its predecessor, lacking originality and depth. Performances feel uninspired, with Paul Mescal's portrayal of Lucius falling flat and Denzel Washington's talent underutilized. The action sequences, though abundant, are monotonous and fail to engage, making the film's pacing sluggish. Moreover, the script is riddled with clichés and lacks the emotional resonance that made the first film compelling. There are gross continuity mistakes (ex. the position of the arrow that killed Lucious wife). Overall, "Gladiator II" is a lackluster attempt at reviving a classic, leaving audiences yearning for the original's glory. One of Ridley Scott's WORSE film's.

My first reaction after watching this film was, I Waited 24 years for this? This film takes place 16 years later with Rome under new leadership. The Roman army, lead by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) doing what they do out conquering other kingdoms and capturing slaves. Bringing them back including one special slave by the name of. Lucius (Paul Mescal). The acting in this film was good, with the exception of Denzel Washington as Macrinus and Connie. Nielsen as Lucilla who were exceptional in my opinion. The storyline of the film is similar to the first Gladiator film but without the emotion. The battle and fight scenes were good and well choreographed. That's the positives about this sequel film. The negative which really detract from the film are the use of CGI for some of the scenes. It reminded me of one of those bad SyFy Channel movies they used to show on weekend afternoons. I almost expected Ian Ziering and Tara. Reid to show up.

Massive step down from the first Gladiator, it's literally a worse movie in every single way, and I do mean literally. Which is especially bad because if we're being honest the original Gladiator was a 7/10 at best, and I say that as someone who loves the first movie but isn't blinded by nostalgia. Also black washing the emperor is just as bad as white washing a character, historically Macrinus was a berber from North Africa, from royal stock with blood ties to Rome (how he was able to become an emperor in the first place), he was almost certainly not Denzel Washington levels of black. To add insult to injury there are PLENTY of actors who also could have put on just as much of an average performance as Denzel did.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]