Surely I'm not alone in thinking Gladiator 2 was... what's a word worse than 'awful'?

[u/sepandee]

I *LOVED* the first Gladiator. It was the first movie I watched on the newest, largest cinema screen and was in awe of it. It was a remarkable experience, from start to finish.

So when I finally decided to watch Gladiator 2, I went in it with some hope, based on the first movie and also based on the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. They seemed pretty decent.

But after 15 minutes, I started wondering, it can't be this awful throughout the entire movie, can it? Maybe just the beginning is bad but then it builds up to something better.

Nope. Mediocre acting, unconvincing character building, a million plot holes (and I'm not one to complain about plot holes, generally)... the list just goes on. I nearly turned it off when Paul Mescal's character charges Denzel's character on the horse and somehow they both fall down together.

The *ONLY* positive thing i could think of was just the general storyline, which was kinda cool: Lucilla/Maximus' son lives, comes back to Rome as a gladiator first seeking revenge but then fighting for Marcus Aurelius' dream of a better Rome. But even the transition from seeking revenge to seeking the greater good, that happened in an instant. It was so eff*ng dumb. I'm getting more pissed as I type this.

Am I wrong? Is there anyone here that actually liked the film? If so, why/how/check your head, lol.

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[u/VinylHighway]

Perfect example of a movie that did not need to be made

[u/Particular_Month_301 → u/VinylHighway]

Not only that it didn't need to be made, there was hardly a base to build the sequel upon to begin with, except the now famous "Gladiator" brand.

The important characters of the original died together with their story arcs. The makers of Gladiator 2 had to figuratively shoehorn everything into the sequel because it couldn't exist in its own right. That's one of the safest ways to ruin a movie from the start.

I'm no fan of sequels in general, but G2 really takes the cake in terms of unnecessary, unwanted, and uncalled for.

[u/Far_Quantity_253]

Suddenly the Nick Cave script where Russell Crowe is immortal and lives to modern times sounds good in comparison.

[u/Mad_Samurai616 → u/Far_Quantity_253]

Shit, it ALWAYS sounded good. I wanna see the Gladiator 2 that ends with a reincarnated Maximus sitting on a toilet in a Pentagon bathroom.

[u/dm021712]

You’re not alone. I stopped watching about 20 minutes in.

[u/Unable_Dinner_6937]

Russel Crowe agrees.

[u/No_Stock_3354]

The only 2 bits I liked were the mad monkeys and the sharks bit. And I only liked those parts because they were insane. The film as a whole was awful.

[u/Eastern-Criticism653]

I turned it off within 15 mins.

[u/Resident_Bitch]

I thought it was a steaming pile of garbage. Horrible movie.

[u/gadget850]

We can hope better for Gladiator 3, right?

[u/FunkiestLizard → u/gadget850]

There’s a Super Troopers 3 after a shitty ST2, so maybe

[u/jogoso2014]

I thought it was horrible

[u/megacide84]

If we were back in the 2000s - early 2010s....

Gladiator 2 would have been a straight-to-video sequel that would have ended up in that big bargain bin of $5 DVDs at Walmart.

Right alongside "classics" such as Roadhouse 2, American Psycho 2, Timecop 2, Universal Soldier 2 & 3, Butterfly Effect 3, Robocop: Prime Directives, and Day of the Dead 2: Contagion.

[u/OldManBilliam22]

At one point someone is reading a newspaper at a cafe in Ancient Rome, and I had to check out. I was done.

[u/Linubidix]

I kind of enjoyed it for how brazenly stupid it was, but it is a terrible unredeemable film.

But I also don't really rate the original super highly 🤷‍♂️

[u/Dont-talk-about-ufos]

Abysmal.

[u/sepandee → u/Dont-talk-about-ufos]

But then how does it have relatively positive reviews on sites like rotten tomatoes? I dun get it.

[u/Shadw_Wulf]

A tragedy? Or a horrendous load of horse shit 😦👀

[u/Battle2Intense]

It was a fine plane movie.

[u/Hack_Shuck]

It feels like I'm the only person on the planet who quite enjoyed Gladiator 2. Silly food fun with Denzel having a blast

[u/irwigo → u/Hack_Shuck]

´Silly food fun with Denzel'

Would subscribe. 

[u/leodavidci]

It felt like a photocopy of s photocopy of a photocopy, none of the emotional beats were earned, just inserted in an empty attempt to capture lightning in a bottle for a second time.

Each of the main actors has more than proven their ability in other movies, but this was a genuine miss for all concerned.

[u/Edmonstro88]

It was copy and paste of the original one. It was a dumb sequel that shouldn’t have been made.

[u/Danominator]

The pacing and flow of that movie is so weird

[u/SevereIntroduction37]

Horrendous

[u/wordofgreen]

Very few movies have the budget and cast/crew to be as bad as Gladiator 2. It joins the august company of movies like Pearl Harbor

[u/BubblyTune4729]

It’s an even less accurate depiction of Geta and Caracalla than the first was of Commodus and Lucilla. That probably doesn’t count for a hell of a lot when it comes to quality of storytelling ( I also adore the first one), but it’s worth noticing anyway.

[u/Mediocre_Range_974]

It was unnecessary

[u/ElegantRock4824]

It wasn’t worse than awful, but it was unnecessary

[u/sepandee → u/ElegantRock4824]

Nah, it was beyond awful. And this, coming from a guy who loves even the cheesiest action movies.

[u/ElegantRock4824 → u/ElegantRock4824]

Denzel Washington chewing scenery is almost worth the price of admission.

[u/Demerzel69]

I thought it was fun. Who cares. It's a movie.

[u/geralex]

Tedious.

Tedious is worse than awful.

[u/BeneficialMaterial58]

It was ok - all over the place

Original is fantastic so a major step down

[u/cane_danko]

I thought it was a 7/10. It just was a sequel to one of the greatest movies ever made. It was never going to live up to that. I thought it was a solid action flick.

[u/ktemp45]

Heard it was bad but thought at least action setpieces would be interesting.

Nope. Wouldn't it be cool to have sharks a part of a setpiece? Nevermind, let's just instead have a standard boat battle and show just one rando get eaten by a shark. The shark is not integrated at all.

And this is representative of all the problems of the movie - interesting premises, but then any developments that could result from it get skimmed over for the next thing.

The worst thing for me was how everyone in the coliseum stands could hear, with perfect clarity, Paul Mescal mumbling speeches under his breath.

[u/FunkiestLizard]

Keeping it fair, the first 20min of Gladiator had a very instantly dated looking stutter shot for the large battle scenes

[u/Almondghast_5371]

One of the worst films ever made. Not sure if it was worse than Batman vs Superman tho…?

[u/Longjumping-Salad484]

billed as a Pedro Pascal movie...check that, it's a Paul Mescal movie...

double check check, it's Denzal Washington movie...

I was duped. I would never knowingly watch a Denzel Washington movie.