The premise of Gladiator 2 might tip-toe on familiar and predictable grounds but what makes the drama supremely effective is the characterization along with the character dynamics that fuel the narrative ahead. So Hanno is a character that would essentially represent the modern day Gen-Zs, as also someone who is ruthless but with a fair sense of a moral ground. You can tell that politics is not his affair given his idealistic approach about Rome that is christened with broad strokes of morality. So his immediate enemy is Acucius whom he witnesses ordering the kill of his wife while being unaware that Acucius himself is reluctantly serving the two tyrants Emperors Geta and Caracalla, who have reduced the surroundings of Rome to rubble, often ordering Gladiator fights to commemorate an occasion. There is also Macrinus (A terrific Denzel Washington), a former slave turned slave owner who pretends to serve the empire while discreetly vying for the crown.

The politics of the land plays an important character in the drama while being easily extendible to the geo-politics of the world that we live in today. The common man is always a symbol of resilience (read : gladiators), fighting it out in the modern day arenas, either with themselves or with their situations, each of which represented by kills in the Roman arena. In a way, the streak of commentary can also be equated to the mediocrity in terms of cinema that we are witness to, given how people lap up almost anything similar to the cruel fights that were enjoyed back in the day. This, while I digress a bit with that woke comparison! But the fact remains that Hanno is an underdog resorting to fights of duality – one in the arena with somche ruthless opponents in the form of animals and people, and the other with the system in general that sees him as a slave doubling up as a ‘Barbarian Hero’ with the rulers automatically playing ‘Divide and Rule’ in their kingdom.

The proceedings are efficient particularly in linking the events of the first film here, with a startling revelation that further complicates matters for Hanno, even further being embroiled in an internal conflict. But the underlying theme on staging a fightback against the whole system is pretty much used as an underlying layer, even as the shifting dynamics brings to the fore a new nemesis in the form of Macrinus. The approach here is unassuming of triggering a collapse to the throne by eliminating each of the oppositions one by one, while giving an impression of a change, only to play the exact same games while being in power. Seems familiar eh? And so, the concept of the arena is more metaphorical with respect to Hanno, even as he gets to learn about his origins in a terrific scene at the arena.

The general consensus with regard to the final act will be an underwhelming one. But one of the reasons why the finale worked for me was because it treaded the unconventional route just like in Ridley Scott’s entire filmography. For instance in The Martian, the rescue operation is pretty much done, the fuss is minimal while the focus was just on the survival of the protagonist. There were no montages constructed on having a lingering feeling of the drama – something that is also the case here. You see a minimal fuss even as the political landscape gets clearer, leaving just two contenders to the throne. And so, the final face-off is also minimalistic almost a natural progression of the organic complexities that preceded the finale. Immediately after, there isn’t a montage too because by the end of it we as viewers already know the intentions of the protagonist, and so there wasn’t any need to reiterate the same. This was matured filmmaking that didn’t wish to resort to the traits of sensationalism and dramatization that is pretty much evident in films of today’s times. Overall, the screenplay might have been predictable but it made for a superbly constructed drama that is an efficient successor to the first Gladiator.