Great movies can play fast and loose with the story. But not Gladiator II with its rhinos and cafe culture | Charlotte Higgins

DDoes accuracy matter in a movie set in the past? When a historian pointed out flaws in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, the director brusquely told him to “get a life”. But sifting fact from fiction and plausible plotline from sheer imagination is part of the fun of watching a historical film. Sorry, Ridley: you’re as likely to fend off incoming pedantry on Gladiator II as you are to defend yourself in battle against a pack of (incredibly) bloodthirsty baboons.

Weeks before Gladiator II opened, its trailer was already the subject of historical accuracy. In fact, the main culprit was not so much a matter of historical error as a crime against common sense: no, rhinos cannot be tamed, broken and ridden like horses. Could the Colosseum really fill with water and turn the stage into a mock sea battle?

It is actually confused. Reportedly, the opening of the Colosseum in AD 80 involved such an event, but it seems more likely that such extravagances would have been staged in another, more appropriate location. Nothing about the remains of the building suggests that it was capable of being flooded and kept watertight. One thing is certain, though: rich Romans may have done all sorts of things with elaborate seawater ponds (the magnate Crassus famously held an eel and reportedly wept when it died), but harvested and introduced man-killing sharks into the aforementioned mockery. naval battles were beyond them.

Denzel Washington as Macrinus. Photo: Photo Credit: Cuba Scott/© 2024 Paramount Pictures

Five minutes for a trailer: two and a half hours for the whole film. It’s hard to know where to begin when presented with the full, lavish, epic spread of historical inaccuracy that Gladiator II offers. One of the funniest moments is offered by Denzel Washington’s Macrinus (yes, a real person from Mauritania, but not a former slave – and he eventually succeeded Caracalla as emperor). At one point, this wonderful camp creation is seen viciously sipping what appears to be a cup of coffee (not around for another millennium or so) or tea (only China at this time) in a cafe (there wasn’t any), while reading the morning paper (again only China produced paper and of course nothing even remotely close to a newspaper).

The gladiator games themselves: there is something wonderful about Gladiator II when all hell breaks loose in the crowd as well as in the arena. It’s amazing to see. But the Roman historians Mary Beard and Keith Hopkins in their book Colosseumbelieve that the meandering horde of reputation is a myth: the real crowd might have been something more like, they suggest, audiences for modern opera, with a good deal less gladiator blood spilled than in the movies. (To be fair, I have seen crowds at the Royal Opera House baying for blood, but not yet actually rioting.)

As for Caracalla, played as an enjoyably crazy sybarite by Fred Hechinger, he really was the Roman emperor, and yes, he really did rule with his brother Geta – but only briefly, until the former had the latter killed. (By the way, syphilis is hinted at in Gladiator II – it is unlikely to have arrived in Europe much before the great smallpox epidemic of 1495, although its origin is a matter of debate.) In Scott’s film, the sibling emperors are rather peculiar creations—somewhere between Johnny Rotten, the Harkonnens from the original Dune, and the most impactful figures you could find in a Lawrence Alma-Tadema painting, their sniveling femininity . worryingly set against the masculine virtues of Paul Mescal’s gladiator. They are pale and red-haired, although in real life they are the sons of a Libyan-born father, Septimius Severus, and a Syrian mother, Julia Domna. (In other ways, the film is rightly invested in emphasizing the diversity of Roman life, its people drawn from across the Mediterranean world.)

From left, Fred Hechinger as Emperor Caracalla, Pedro Pascal as General Acacius and Joseph Quinn as Emperor Geta. Photo: Aidan Monaghan/© 2024 Paramount Pictures

The real Caracalla was one bearded tough warriorprobably eyeliner-free, who barely made it down to Rome, spent most of his reign at war and/or massacring people. He financed the building of a huge bath complex in Rome and largely passed a law making free men citizens throughout the empire. He was at the helm for a good 19 years before he was murdered. His mother, Julia Domna, is one of the most recognizable women of the Roman Empire, thanks to a very characteristic hairstyle of horizontal, helmet-like waves, immortalized in sculpture, coinsceramics and the famous “Berlin Tondo“.

The latter is a rare painting showing her, her husband and their children. Geta’s face was scratched out after his removal from the throne, just as his name was erased from inscriptions across the empire. Various Roman sources have Domna with considerable power in Rome. Exactly the kind of scenario that could possibly have made for an interesting plotline…

And that, unfortunately, is part of the point. Gladiator I is a classic film for many reasons: one of them, its fantastic plot. I don’t believe for a second that Marcus Aurelius was secretly conspiring to restore the Roman Republic – but the idea worked as a plotline for the film, not least because there really was a stream of Roman thought that looked back wistfully at the “good old “. days” before the one-man rule. Gladiator II is a kind of skewed re-drawing of Gladiator I, pasted awkwardly over the predecessor’s template.

Because it’s so determined to follow the previous film’s beats, nothing about it makes much sense. Poor Paul Mescal does a wonderful job with his fight scenes, but otherwise struggles with a character whose motivations don’t seem to add up. You can overlook a lot of historical nonsense if the story strongly pulls you along; when it is not, doubts about everything else enter.

My pedant’s expectations were lifted in the first few minutes when Mescal utters an actual quote from the writer Tacitus. (“They make a desert and call it peace”—an echo attributed by the historian to the Caledonian leader Calgacus, albeit in a different historical period.) After that, at least, it’s downhill for me. Go see Gladiator II for the menacing rhinos, the severed limbs spewing blood (if that’s your thing) and the great audience scenes. For a great movie: stick with Gladiator I.