“Gladiator II” was an action-packed, long and stimulating movie. Much of the casting and scenes played well with “Gladiator I.” The film tied both Gladiator movies together, using flashbacks and dreams of a New Rome to connect them. The movie theater was filled, parking was scarce and tickets almost sold out a week prior. Expectations were high for this movie.
This movie’s cinematography was decent, it wasn’t horrible but wasn’t good. “Gladiator II”
had poorly shot scenes and scenes that made no sense. Although the scenes did display emotion incredibly, it gave the scene the essence of power and chaos. Some scenes were perfect but the cinematography was done poorly. It could’ve been better and gave a better angle of fights or characters. It ended up with scenes that should’ve never been there or that had important information but were done improperly and gave a bad view. There was a scene in the Colosseum during a naval battle where they had very up close shots of people falling into the water. I thought it was just too close and didn’t need that much screen time.
The casting for “Gladiator II” was really good, I enjoyed seeing famous actors and new additions, actors like Denzel Washington who plays a former gladiator and arms dealer for Rome. Pedro Pascal, the main Roman general, had great scenes and played interesting roles in “Gladiator II.” Due to his experience in acting and how many amazing films he has been in. Actors like Paul Mescal, who played Lucius, the son of Maximus, from the first movie, and Derek Jacobi, who played one of the senators, had more prominent features that made them look Roman. Their looks played a huge part in the movie, they also had to choose a character similar to Russel Crowe who played Maximus in the first film, Paul was the child of Maximus so the casting must be similar to Russel. This is important because it played a good role in his personality in the movie which was similar to Maximus.
A lot of the costumes were either elegant or made in a crude manner. The powerful senators and leaders wore brighter colors such as orange or white. In the film, slaves and gladiators wore more ragged clothing, brown and tan colors. The color schemes like brown, grey and tan were the main colors in the movie, so when you see white or brighter colors you can tell how much power the character held. The costumes were pretty good and it helped with the story, it demonstrated different levels of hierarchy.
The script of the movie was amazing, it had increasing tension with Lucius enraged with anger and hate from the death of his wife, and he initially helped with the downfall of Rome. The twin rulers having too much power and destroying the dream of Rome made the movie what it was. The Colosseum played a huge part in the script because the amusement of rulers and for Lucius to fight for his freedom and take revenge for his beloved wife held the movie together. I noticed the movie was historically inaccurate, in scenes there were papers given to a senator who was at a tea house reading the news, which wouldn’t have happened because the printing press hadn’t been created until 1,200 years later.
The music in the movie was interesting, they had a very vocal chorus. They had classical music playing, a vocalist and many classical instruments were in play. It helped the movie tremendously in scenes and set the scenes or made sense of what was happening in the movie. During scenes in the Colosseum, a dramatic chorus was singing and scenes in temples or next to the emperor’s classical music were playing.
“Gladiator II” was a good movie, but the format in which certain scenes were shot could have been changed. Everything else was on point, but the camera views could have improved certain scenes. The casting was on point, as were the music and costumes. Expectations were high during this movie, and they hit that goal, but they could have done better with the scenes.
“Gladiator II:” ★★★★☆
