'Gladiator II' gets 2 thumbs down: Ridley Scott's latest film can't keep you entertained

Ridley Scott's latest annual feature, "Gladiator II," takes up the unenviable task of following up on the original, which swept the Oscars and remained a modern classic for more than 20 years. The movie follows the events of "Gladiator," so if you haven't seen the original, be wary of any spoilers.

This time, the film follows Lucius (Paul Mescal), who seeks revenge against the Roman General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) and winds up in the Colosseum to face off against Emperor Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla's (Fred Hechinger) greatest threats for sport. During all this, you watch as the cunning Macrinus (Denzel Washington) manipulates Rome's politics in his favor to ascend the royal hierarchy.

If that setup sounds oddly familiar, that's because … it is. "Gladiator II" acts essentially as a soft reboot or repeat (at times, shot-for-shot) of the original. For the first two hours of this movie, it feels like you're just going through the exact same story beats the first film went through. Family members dying, becoming a slave, meeting a former gladiator and rising through the ranks as Rome crumbles — it's all been done before and, quite frankly, better.

The first "Gladiator" works so well in its simplicity, structured as a simple revenge story with the backdrop of Roman history to supplant it with a healthy dose of scale and pathos. Despite only having 21 pages of script to go on, Scott managed to craft a remarkably solid picture that could practically please any audience.

Yet in this sequel, those familiar Scott hallmarks now seem trite in comparison and lack the energy the first film had. The movie's pacing is completely out of whack, with most scenes feeling cut off before hitting their stride. But somehow, it still seems like it slogs toward the climax with the speed of a geriatric snail. The script sets up a whole host of spinning plates, but they all seem so familiar or disjointed that they crash into each other.

The action scenes also suffer from the typical modern cliche: bad CGI. The first gladiator fight especially feels comical since Mescal is forced to play fight with a bunch of cartoonish, blood-hungry monkeys flailing around the frame. If the audience knows that all this stuff on-screen is digital, then there's no real tension in any of the fight scenes. You feel nothing.

The cast is trying their best to piece this mess together, but unfortunately, almost none of them manage to carry the same charisma that the original contained. Mescal, in particular, carries none of the screen presence that made Maximus (Russell Crowe) such a star, making him woefully uninteresting as a protagonist. Pascal and Quinn try to beef up the film's dramatic core, yet they also feel lost in the chaos and get tossed aside for the show's real star — Denzel Washington.

Washington is genuinely the only reason to see this schlock in theaters. He essentially does a historical take on his character in "Training Day" and brings a palpable sense of energy that resuscitates the movie's momentum in the climax.

The last half hour feels so much more entertaining by comparison, and it can all be chalked up to Washington's sheer charisma. The man knows how to command a scene, and every moment with him immediately grabs your attention. Washington's got such a specific and well-defined aura that glides him through every scene as he acts, leaps and bounds ahead of his colleagues.

By the time the film's last fifth commences, you watch as most of the first film's tropes are thrown in the trash in favor of a much more interesting character. Ironically, in a movie designed to entertain through massive, overindulgent gladiator fights, the best part winds up being a guy just talking about his plans to rule the senate.

Despite his performance, it's still hard to directly recommend "Gladiator II," partly due to how niche its audience would be. Finding a demographic for this film feels impossible because if you liked "Gladiator," this just feels like a lesser version. But if you hated "Gladiator," you'll also hate this film because it hits all the same beats.

In summary, you won't be entertained.