Gladiator II
Directed by Ridley ScottYears after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.
Gladiator II Ratings & Reviews
- VarunDecember 5, 2024This movie is grand but shallow at the same time. I watched this in IMAX and the scope of the set pieces are absolutely amazing. The lighting is also handled really well. And the fight scenes go hard, it’s shot with clarity and the sound design makes it perfectly impactful. On the one hand the powerfully emotive acting does affect the gravitas of various scenes, but the character writing and story is weak and hence it fails to pull any of your heart strings. It felt more like a nice looking entertaining flick to pass the time but not much complexity to care enough about the story. The emperors this time around are two caricaturish lame villains with no backstory and zero bite. Paul Mescal is fantastic, never seen him embody such a ferocious masculine personality. I wish we could see at least some camaraderie between him and his teammates but there’s none. At least his conversations with Ravi was a nice touch. Denzel is also masterful as usual, using his cunning wiles to ascend the ladder, but in the end his plans also get a bit comical, which is inevitable when dealing with empty character writing for the emperors. God they really underutilised the legacy characters, Grachhus is barely in the movie while Lucilla isn’t up to a whole lot of scheming here and is mostly relegated to being a grieving mother. I enjoyed seeing Pedro Pascal but also it seemed too similar to Maximus’s character so it felt like a repeat, I guess I noticed it more since I watched the first movie 2 days before this sequel. Spoiler Ahead. I also feel the Lucius reveal was kind of meh, didn’t really enhance the story for me that much and it seemed forced, the writers just chalk it up to fate that he ends up in Rome as a gladiator. I did learn something new though, that kids with blonde hair can actually turn into adults with dark brown hair. Despite tons of flaws the movie was entertaining enough and is worth checking out for the epic visuals and action scenes.
- CarbonDJNovember 3, 2025Had super low expectations. A sequel all these years later couldn't be amazing, but it was a great watch. Gonna make me go revisit the original and get a fair comparison, but it is absolutely worthy of a watch, and maybe even more.
- Ty LeetNovember 27, 2024Fire everyone involved except Paul Mescal and try again.
- mickerdooOctober 22, 2025Still with the tremendous style and period. A couple too many resemblances of the first. Liked the added cast and final scene.
- dal.giMarch 24, 2025Absolute trash
- S JohnsonJanuary 28, 2025Gladiator 2 is arguably the most overhyped film of the past decade.
- carlin_98August 15, 2025One of the worst sequels i've ever seen. Incredibly boring
- Croydon FernandesAugust 8, 2025It started off good, and then ended as if the writers went on strike. CGI seemed weird during some of the battles. Overall average watch.
- Tommy1582August 8, 2025Hasn't a patch on the original. Not a bad plot, but some of the action and effects were way OTT. Sharks in the Colosseum, really?, think that's where this movie lost me. Love the original. No need for sequels to always have bigger and better action. Let the story/writing do the heavy lifting.
- Rafael Chaves GratarolliAugust 4, 2025Not a good movie at all.
- J.F. RuizJuly 7, 2025It is a shame.
- AndreiTamasJuly 30, 2025good movie not as good as og but good connection to og . great set designs and costumes good ending
- Andrew KerrJune 14, 2025Had potential. Poor execution. Outdated directing style and cinematography. Frankly ridiculous dialogue and character interactions completely unrealistic and implausible. Wasted good actors.
- stuhannafordMay 27, 2025It passes a couple of hours, it isn’t a dreadful movie, but the weight of expectation makes it feel such a let down. Standing beside the original, it feels little more than a grand, heavy handed cash in. On its own, it’s perhaps a Hollywood blockbuster, that will live in the memory for a summer and nothing more. The subtleties of the original are replaced by bombastic moments that fail to land. It is at times, an almost play for play reenactment, with small variations, to trick you into believing it’s an original story. Almost every character a substitute with a new name, each with added ‘drama’. Each scene has a touch of, ‘do kind of what we did before, but bigger, bolder and louder’… or just add a shark. Where we once watched Phoenix announce himself to the world with a performance of a complex man child, fighting to disprove his fathers beliefs, only to compound them, we now get subjected to one dimensional, petulant school kids with zero character or charisma. Maximus, a man you would happily follow into war yourself, now little more than a sulky chap with a chip on his shoulder. The intricacies and intelligence of the battles and fights, now just the standard run of the mill CGI scenes that could be plucked from a list of modern movies. The same classic score is used over and again, but added for nostalgia rather than effect, and doesn’t fit. Pascal and McInnerny are the only actors to forge their own way and really hold their own. Even Washington, a great actor by any standard, is hampered by problems, some within his control (the American accent jars), but mostly out… the odd, loud declaration of his sexuality during his first on screen meeting with McInnerny, feels forced and unnecessary. The performances of two outstanding professionals make this abundantly clear, but it’s as if the writers sat down and said, ‘are we sure we’ve hit our inclusivity targets? Let’s add a line just to make sure.’ And it’s these sledgehammer moments throughout, that reduce the project to ‘meh’ rather than ‘yeah!’
- DadJuly 24, 2025An automatic 3 stars for Denzel alone. I'm afraid Pedro is getting too much exposure lately, he was awesome in Game of Thrones and the Mandalorian but since then I've been let flat.
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Gladiator II Trivia
Gladiator II was released on November 13, 2024.
Gladiator II was directed by Ridley Scott.
Gladiator II has a runtime of 2 hr 27 min.
Gladiator II was produced by Michael A. Pruss, David Franzoni, Ridley Scott, Douglas Wick, Lucy Fisher.
The key characters in Gladiator II are Lucius (Paul Mescal), Macrinus (Denzel Washington), General Acacius (Pedro Pascal).
Gladiator II is rated R.
Gladiator II is an Action, Adventure, Drama film.
Gladiator II has an audience rating of 8.1 out of 10.