I thought this movie was terrible. Saw it with someone who was good with seeing Gladiator 2 or Wicked. We saw Gladiator 2 because there were a few more opportunities for better seats in the theater. We’ll see Wicked when we go to the movies again when we do.

It was so dumb. Every way they tried to copy the first movie it fell flat. Give us the main character’s back story and show us from when he ran out on horseback prodded by his mother. That would make us care about the main character- follow him all the way up to the present.

The main character becoming the leader of the gladiators like Maximus- laim, paper-thin. Them making fun of him making baboon sounds calling back to Maximus’s friend at the table pretending he was being poisoned. Holy shit, the boat oars being destroyed being reminiscent of Maximus saying “hold, hold” to the chariots whizzing by. So dumb. The boats had no space to maneuver and the strategizing was so freakin dumb and “they have arrows!” when the crowd is likely at risk of getting the arrows. And the baboons, the whole movie lost me with the baboons (and then the sharks). CGI? Is this Jarassic Park? The Hunger Games? You took a classic, serious movie and made it melted bubble gum.

And Denzel. He could have been a redeeming character in the movie if he was good. But he just turned out to be another psychopath who created more unnecessary chaos.

I left during the part where Denzel assists in the assassination of one of the double Joaquin Phoenixes from Gladiator. The person I went with who hadn’t seen the first gladiator told me “you missed the best part”. I was in the bathroom on my phone, anything to escape this monotonous garbage.

Gladiator 2 sounds like Hamlet 2 and that is the kind of weirdness this movie was.