An excerpt from my script review for Gladiator 2 which will be available 01/07/25:
2.) Plot Stability
Apologies in advance to those that have read this story before…
I remember sitting in the theater for an early Saturday showing of Force Awakens. Having had too much coffee that morning, I squirmed like a toddler back and forth, having to go pee, but not wanting to miss anything in this long awaited sequel.
Queue up the opening scene, where Poe kneels down to BB-88 and uploads a file telling him to get it back to the Resistance.
It was exactly that moment that I leaned over to my wife and whispered, “Well, I’ve seen this movie before,” and then proceeded to go to the restroom.
There were definitely similar elements like that between Gladiator II and the original.
Some were for the sake of nostalgia, tying the two together, but others felt directly cherry-picked from the Russell Crowe version.
One glaring issue was the whole “Rome still isn’t free” main plot point.
Similar to the end of Return of the Jedi, where we see the Empire being toppled, at the end of the original Gladiator, Maximus’s body is carried off as a hero, while the dead Emperor is left in the dust…literally.
We’re led to presume that Marcus Aurelius’s dream of a free Rome was restored…but nope!
The story starts off with Lucius…
It’s kind of vague whether this is the same Lucius as the original, now a grown man, until it’s not.
Almost as if the writers were trying to go for this big reveal, and then realized everyone would pretty much know.
So Lucius is taken captive and sold to Macrinus, played by Denzel Washington.
I mention that only as it reminds me of the absolute fury for the first trailer and the Jay-Z lyric in it, and I was wondering how his character would be explained.
Setting aside the practical carbon copy of Macrinus and Proximo, when Lucius is tested for his abilities, he refuses to fight, just as Maximus did.
And there are other similarities between the two.
Lucius reaching down to rub the sand between his hands because…Maximus.
Lucius rallying the other gladiators to fight together in their first battle because…Maximus.
Lucius being revered by the other gladiators for having plot armor that allows him to win every fight because…Maximus.
Acacius, when trying to save Lucius, being sold out and killed just like…well, Cicero technically since he was shot and hung on the horse.
This story didn’t really feel original enough to warrant being made.
Listen, Lucius wasn’t a bad character by any means, but the writer(s) tried so hard to make him Maximus that it felt lazy.
Essentially Acacius was rewritten as Maximus’s army form, in that he won battles and expanded Rome’s empire. In fact, in the very first Coliseum fight from the first film, one of the other gladiators stated he fought with the good General before.
Maximus was a legend to most of these men and his victories and stubbornness would have easily won them over like it did in the first film.
For Lucius though, like I said, he really only has plot armor that keeps him alive, and the other gladiators worship him merely because the plot requires it.
This is lazy writing.
Few other minor issues…
Why was Maximus forgotten? How did these twin brother morons become Emperors without any real lineage to the throne?
Lucilla whisks Lucius away because somehow he’s in danger after Maximus dies, but why is he hunted? Who knows.
Why did we have to shoe horn in that Maximus was Lucius’s real father.
This felt really stupid, and something that would have come up in the first film if true.
Avoid cheap and lazy writing, please!
And the ending of overthrowing the Emperors and Macrinus? Too long and with little to no emotion.
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