JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Filmmaker Ridley Scott reinvented the Hollywood sword and sandals epic 24 years ago with his Oscar-winning best picture, "Gladiator." This week he heads back to the Roman colosseum with "Gladiator II." The film has already taken in roughly $100 million overseas, and critic Bob Mondello predicts it will do just as well here in the U.S.
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BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: After animated opening credits recap the first "Gladiator" film - a hero sold into slavery, fighting and dying in the arena and, at the last moment, a boy named Lucius escaping in the chaos - the camera takes us to the coast of North Africa some 20 years later. There, a man played by Paul Mescal, who bears a striking resemblance to that boy, though he goes by another name, lives in a town that's being attacked by dozens of Roman warships.
The battle, the first of many in an epic designed to emphasize sweep and grandeur, is furious and bloody - flames catapulted into sails, bodies hurling themselves at battlements, with more or less the expected resolve articulated by Pedro Pascal's conquering general...
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PEDRO PASCAL: (As Marcus Acacius) I claim this city for the glory of Rome.
MONDELLO: ...At which point Mescal is sold into slavery and begins a journey remarkably like the one in the first movie. He's bought by a Machiavellian slave trader, played by a scenery-chewing Denzel Washington, who has big plans.
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DENZEL WASHINGTON: (As Macrinus) Rome must fall. I need to only give it a push.
MONDELLO: The trader recognizes a hunger for vengeance in his gladiator and tries to stoke it.
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WASHINGTON: (As Macrinus) Whose head could I give you that would satisfy this fury?
PAUL MESCAL: (As Lucius) Entire Roman armies.
WASHINGTON: (As Macrinus) Too much.
MESCAL: (As Lucius) The general will do.
MONDELLO: The gladiator's taken to Rome, where that general's wife, Lucilla, from the imperial family, whispers of connections he's not ready to accept...
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CONNIE NIELSEN: (As Lucilla) If you will not have your mother's love, then take your father's strength.
MONDELLO: ...While he's exhibiting his arena skills, fighting everything from bloodthirsty baboons to a warrior astride a monstrous rhinoceros.
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MESCAL: (As Lucius) This is about survival. Come on.
(As Lucius) All together. And when it charges, break for the wall.
MONDELLO: There is lots of fighting in "Gladiator II." It's kind of what we came for. And filmmaker Ridley Scott keeps it as varied as it is massive, even filling his colosseum with shark-infested water for a naval battle. The film almost always looks spectacular, partly because much of it was shot not with computer effects but with real crowds in a real colosseum, a vision of ancient Rome to rival 1950's Hollywood epics. It often sounds like them, too.
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MESCAL: (As Lucius) There once was a time when honor meant something in Rome. In this Rome, I no longer believe that exists. We must find it.
MONDELLO: It would be hard not to hear political echoes in some of this, often conflicting echoes - a hero plotting to topple the government to make Rome great again versus a newly empowered emperor who, when challenged...
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MESCAL: (As Lucius) Rome has so many subjects. She must feed them.
MONDELLO: ...Says impolitic things...
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FRED HECHINGER: (As Caracalla) They can eat war.
MONDELLO: ...And who is so sure the Senate will confirm his nominee for chief consult that he nominates his pet monkey. Accidental timing makes that one stand out, but there are lots more, readable in any number of ways or not. "Gladiator II" isn't nearly as much about the politics of Rome or even the inner life of its title character as it is about filling the biggest possible screen with echoes of the first film, from a double-sworded beheading to variations on the way a simple farmer touches green earth, a showcase for filmmaker Ridley Scott, who, at 86, remains a master of spectacle and scale and who knows the real question with this brand of popcorn picture is the one Maximus posed defiantly in the first "Gladiator" after dispatching an arena's worth of rival.
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RUSSELL CROWE: (As Maximus) Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?
MONDELLO: It is, and we still are. I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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