'GLADIATOR II' LEAVES US ONLY SLIGHTLY ENTERTAINED

Somewhere between the gladiator battle with sharks in the Roman Colosseum and the coronation of a monkey as the Emperor's Counsel, you start to think maybe Ridley Scott is taking the piss.

- SCOTT GARCEAU

We don't recall the Russell Crowe Gladiator reaching for such cray-cray laughs.

But Gladiator II, set 16 years after the original took place, takes place amid a decaying Roman Empire. Maximus is dead, and his dream of a "just" Rome based on love and charity is now replaced by bigger and bigger spectacles – bread and circuses for the unruly (and now increasingly grumpy) masses. You want feral baboons fighting slaves? You got it!

Two corrupt and seemingly inbred twins, Geta and Caracalla (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger), run this den of sleaze, where Acacius (Pedro Pascal) returns from the wars with a batch of war prisoners – including Paul Mescal as the aggrieved Lucius – and wily operator Marcinus (Denzel Washington) waits in the wings.

I was never really a huge fan of the original