With less than two weeks to go until the year is over, there’s been a lot of looking back at what was released on the 2024 movies schedule, particularly when it comes to the best of the best in the way of cinematic offerings. Alas, director Christopher Nolan didn’t provide any big screen entertainment this year, having already taken the film-loving world by storm with Oppenheimer last year, and currently getting his next movie underway, which will star Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Zendaya, among others. That said, he did geek out about Gladiator II like only Nolan could: with intelligent analysis. Not surprising, right?
Variety asked Nolan and other big-time directors to pick their favorite movies of 2024, and the Inception and Tenet helmer selected Ridley Scott’s latest feature, which arrived 24 years after the first Gladiator movie, which earned five Academy Awards and nominations in seven other categories. Nolan started off praising the Gladiator sequel with these words:
In Ridley Scott’s first ‘Gladiator,’ Maximus asks us, ‘Are you not entertained?’ and we’re confronted with the truth of why we’d visit the Colosseum through a movie. Scott knows we’re not there for insights into Roman culture; we’re there to see our own dark desires at a comfortable remove. But he’s far too experienced a director to get caught making parallels with our time. He lets the world of ‘Gladiator II’ speak for itself, once again showing us who we are simply by inviting us to enjoy the crazy inflationary ride. Why are there sharks in the coliseum? Because we demand them, and Scott masterfully gives them to us. As he reveals how the games are used to manipulate public opinion, we can’t help but see shadows of our own public arena projected onto the sand.
While Gladiator II hasn’t earned quite as much critical acclaim as its predecessor, which is ranked as one of the best movies of the 2000s, Christopher Nolan certainly isn’t alone in enjoying the sequel. Is it the most historically accurate movie? Obviously not, but that’s not the point. It’s supposed to deliver fantastical spectacle during the era of the Roman Empire that makes for a pleasant escape from real life, and Nolan was impressed with how Ridley Scott returned to this world. He continued:
Like the best long-awaited sequels, ‘Gladiator II’ must be a remake and sequel in one, and it’s testament to Scott’s brilliance that he manages to balance the individual pathos of the original with the expansionist demands of the sequel’s central theme, bringing a lifetime of experience in controlling tone. Scott raises the game with the staging of his action — his incredible, hyper-observant, multi-camera mise-en-scène (so different to the original) masterfully wrestles the action into clear and jaw-dropping sequence after sequence. The effect is not just to entertain, but to drive us towards awareness of the movie’s themes. Few filmmakers have ever worked so invisibly on multiple levels. In films from “Blade Runner” to ‘Thelma and Louise’ to ‘Gladiator II,’ the visual density of Scott’s art serves as foil for his underlying thematic clarity.
Picking up two decades after the events of Gladiator, Gladiator II stars Paul Mescal as Lucius Verus Aurelius, the son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus who was previously played by Spencer Treat Clark. Like his father, he’s a prisoner who’s forced to fight as a gladiator, though in this story, it’s in service to Denzel Washington’s Macrinus, who’s looking to overthrow emperors Geta and Caracalla, respectively played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger. Christopher Nolan concluded his complimentary essay on Gladiator II by writing:
Despite all his success, Scott’s contribution to the evolution of cinematic storytelling has never been properly acknowledged. Visual innovations he and fellow directors from the British adland of the 1970s brought to cinema were often dismissed as superficial, but critics of the time missed the point — the lavish photography and meticulous design brought new depth to the visual language of movies, mise-en-scène that could tell us what the worlds they portrayed might feel like. This has never been as clear as in the masterful opening shot of ‘Gladiator II,’ where Paul Mescal’s hand gently cradles the grain harvested from the original movie’s swaying wheat.
So yeah, Christopher Nolan poured a lot of thought into his appreciation for Gladiator II, and rightly so! Currently the sequel has a 71% Tomatometer and and 82% Popcornmeter (previously known as the Audience Score) on Rotten Tomatoes. So again, it’s not measuring up to the quality of Gladiator overall, but Nolan liked what it delivered and then some. Now I wonder how often he’ll end up rewatching it.
Gladiator II is still playing in theaters for either those who haven’t seen it yet or are in the mood for another viewing. Then it’s expected that the sequel will become available to stream with a Paramount+ subscription sometime in 2025.
