Gladiator II reviews: Critics say Paul Mescal film is ‘gobsmacking’ and ‘loopy’

Gladiator II – Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated sequel following the 2000 epic – has been met with a mixed response from film critics.

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, external called the movie a “thrilling spectacle” and “gobsmacking reboot”.

His four-star review also praised Paul Mescal for his performance as the illegitimate son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus, Lucius, and called him a “formidable lead”.

However, he agreed with most critics that while the film is an enjoyable watch, it doesn’t quite live up to the Oscar-winning original.

“It isn’t quite as strong as its predecessor,” wrote Robbie Collin for The Telegraph, external. “But it is still the year’s most relentlessly entertaining blockbuster.”

“You miss Russell Crowe, but Mescal is always watchable, with a stocky, swarthy, brooding presence,” he added in the four-star review.

The FT’s review, external celebrated veteran director, Ridley Scott, for his “stubborn charm”, “belligerent swagger” and “ideas that are more pulpy and loopy”.

“The best of the film is its sheer bloody-minded heft, a blockbuster fuelled by an insistence on bigger, sillier, movie-r,” Danny Leigh wrote, giving the film three stars.

But he added that he’d “be amazed if the sequel is remembered by Christmas, let alone in 24 years”.

Variety’s Owen Gleiberman, external said that while the sequel was a “solid piece of neoclassical popcorn” it’s “ultimately a mere shadow” of the original.

He also noted that while Mescal delivers a fine performance he has “an anger that never quite simmers to a boil” and “we now can’t help but see him as a millennial knockoff of Crowe’s glowering royal punk”.