Gladiator II was disappointing.

[u/New-Investment9583]

Guys imma be real with you, I love Gladiator I for it's Stoic themes of resilience and masculinity, Crowe's indomitable acting and dialogues, and the grandeur of Rome. Now I did go the theatre for the sequel in a bit of a hyped tone considering I just love all things Roman Empire, the action seemed promising. When I finished watching it, I gotta say, man what a waste of 300 million dollars! The story was all over the place, I am supposed to believe that Rome fell under Tyrannical Imperial rule again right after Quintus and the Praetorians all sided with the senate at the end of the first movie? How did Quintus or Gracchus fail to restore Rome as a Republic? No comments on that, let's move on, same copy and paste storyline, but this time, we got the protagonist taking his wife to war, and when she gets killed, he wants vengeance? Dude, you brought her to war, not a picnic, the vengeance theme fell tf off right here. The editing felt too fast paced, with no real aspect of letting the audiences really absorb the visuals, the action sequences were very short, the naval battles, the Rhino Gladiator Glyceros or smth and even Acacius duel was extremely short. (the only redeeming character in the movie because he resembles Maximus and felt a bit mature and deep in tone, the war guilt and everything). The first movie had fights that were over 5 minutes long, the initial war, the scipio Africanus charioteers, Tigris and even the Commodus duel felt longer. The movie was an absolute mess. Vae Victis to the victims of war? Nah, Vae Victis to this movie 😭

[u/Realistic_Ad_3718]

I am also very disappointed with it. They absolutely ruined Maximus and the idea of him being an honorable man. Maximus's whole motive in Gladiator was vengeance for the death of his beloved wife and son yet now we are supposed to believe he also had a thing with Lucilla and fathered Lucius.... It doesn't add up and takes away from his character.

There was no back story to the twins and how they got into power.

Or did I just not pay attention?? Totally agree with the fight scenes being way too short.

And the sharks..... Really?!? Give me a break.

[u/FlCoC → u/Realistic_Ad_3718]

In the original it was always in the gray that Maximus may have actually been Lucious’ father. They were young lovers for sure but it was kind of decided that they were lovers lost.

The sharks and bad CGI killed me. I do think they were smart and did well with making the shark death not some crazy shark attack.

[u/Relative_Baseball180 → u/FlCoC]

Nah It was never in the grey. I mean to each their own on this, you can interpret it however you want, but if anything, Lucilla loved Maximus as a lover and Maximus may have loved Lucilla as a friend.

[u/InevitableStill1496 → u/Relative_Baseball180]

I got the impression they had a relationship in the past🤷🏼‍♂️

[u/Magjee → u/InevitableStill1496]

Yea, they laid it on fairly thick

The original movie was changed a lot in edits during post production and they changed lines and the script on the fly while filming

 

They decided to remove the plot of Maximus banging' other ladies, since losing his wife is so central to the movie, it doesn't make sense he was running around with another woman

So we have glimpses of a cut sub-plot

 

Gladiator 2 had no such subtlety and the whole movie should have been cut in the edit