The long-awaited Gladiator II a good but not great sequel and Paul Mescal is no Russell Crowe

Audiences have been baying for a sequel to Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning sword and sandals classic for more than two decades – but is it worth the wait?

Ridley Scott’s long-awaited sequel is a rip-roaring ride with plenty of spectacular scenes, but can’t quite match the Oscar-winning brilliance of the original.

GLADIATOR II (M)

Paul Mescal as Lucius in Gladiator II.

Director: Ridley Scott (Blade Runner)

Starring: Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Diane Kruger.

Rating: ★★★

For those in a rush, here’s the updated state of play from inside the world of Gladiator.

They got it absolutely right the first time.

They’ve gotten away with it the second time. But only just.

While it has been well over two decades since the original Gladiator slayed audiences with all the classic epic action in Ancient Rome they could possibly handle, talk of a sequel of some kind has never gone away.

The challenge facing Gladiator II filmmakers during all that downtime has been finding someone with all the surly, sexy, swaggering charisma needed to fill the sandals vacated by Russell Crowe in the leading role.

Veteran director Ridley Scott and his team settled on up-and-coming Irish actor Paul Mescal as the man for the job.

An undeniable modern-day heart-throb, who also happens to already have a Best Actor Oscar nomination on his CV, Mescal certainly looks the part here.

However, whether he truly rises to the fist-pumping, grandstanding occasion demanded of him will certainly provoke intense debate among Gladiator devotees.

Mescal stars as Lucius, the downtrodden dude who (just like Crowe’s immortal Maximus) is destined to rise through the ranks of the Roman Empire from lowly slave to top-flight arena fighter.

Pedro Pascal as General Acacius and Paul Mescal as Lucius in Gladiator II.

A rather conventional opening act of Gladiator II establishes Lucius’ credentials as a legitimate hero with a major score to settle. He lives only to avenge the death of his late wife at the hands of the Roman General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal).

Once Lucius is slapped in chains and sent packing to the Empire’s capital to join the fight-for-your-life circuit, the movie starts ramping up the screen-spectacle factor in strange and incongruous ways.

(Though this is the kind of stuff deliberately included to get eyeballs rolling and tongues wagging, it still might be best if you don’t hit the history books to verify any possible authenticity on display. There just ain’t none.)

So get set to be drenched in the blood and the sweat of an Ancient Rome where events programming at the Colosseum appears to be handled by a freaky forerunner to the WWE.

Before Lucius gets his shot at the Empire title belt, he must fight his way up an undercard where opponents will include a peeved pack of limb-stripping super-baboons, a 200kg psychopath galloping about on a 2-tonne rhinoceros, and in a sequence never to be forgotten, a rampaging school of snap-happy sharks.

(That latter scene, staged in a water-filled Colosseum where the only refuge is aboard two boats that have been set on fire, will definitely own your full attention. But it may also erase your ability to take anything else remotely seriously.)

As in the original Gladiator, all storytelling roads in the sequel will lead to a moment of truth where Lucius must choose between winning his own freedom, or securing a release from wide-scale oppression for the whole of the Empire.

This means, of course, that Lucius will have to deliver that one ‘big speech’ that will rouse the rabble, rally the troops, and therefore rattle the foundations of the cinema until the closing credits roll.

Unfortunately, Mescal’s skills as a screen orator are a far cry from those of Crowe – one of the best-spoken actors of his era – and as a result, Lucius’ semi-inspirational call for rebellion consigns Gladiator II to a semi-inconsequential finale.

Those looking for moments of real power and panache here will invariably find them in the possession of the movie’s clear MVP, the incomparable Denzel Washington.

Denzel Washington plays the scheming Macrinus in Gladiator II.

He fills the crucial master-manipulator slot in the role of Macrinus, a wily schemer who not only owns Lucius as a slave, but also has a secret mortgage on the Empire’s throne.

That’s easier work than it seems for Macrinus, as Rome’s principal seat of power is currently occupied by a pair of nepo-nitwit siblings, the Emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger).

When all is said and done – and at a mammoth running time of 160 minutes, be assured there will many sayings and doings – Gladiator II is a fair, if forced sequel which never quite proves the equal of its predecessor.

It still has the capacity to entertain, amuse and distract with ease, but makes hard work of delivering much that is truly original or memorable.

Gladiator II commences screening in Australian cinemas from Wednesday evening.

Originally published as The long-awaited Gladiator II a good but not great sequel and Paul Mescal is no Russell Crowe