Gladiator 2 | Ridley Scott returns to the arena

(Paris) Nearly 25 years after bringing Russell Crowe into the arena, Ridley Scott delivers a brutal and bloody sequel to one of his biggest hits with Gladiator 2a blockbuster starring Denzel Washington and a new generation of stars.

This return to ancient Rome begins 15 years after the first opus, crowned with five Oscars, including those for best film and best actor, after a tidal wave at the global box office.

Paul Mescal, revealed in the series Normal peopleplays Lucius, the nephew of Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) who admired the prowess of the gladiator Maximus (Russell Crowe), killed like his uncle at the Colosseum.

Exiled to Numidia for his safety, Lucius was captured and in turn became a gladiator after the Roman army invaded his adopted land.

Seduced by his rage, Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a former slave hungry for power, makes him fight in Rome, in a plot very similar to that of the first Gladiatorwhich the film constantly echoes.

Ridley Scott, who will soon celebrate his 87th birthday, has decided to bring out the heavy artillery for this sequel: naval battle in a flooded Colosseum where sharks are rampant, clashes with a rhino or rabid baboons in 3D… The British filmmaker pushes for 2 h 30 the cursors of violence and the spectacular, taking liberties with History.

And this, sometimes to the detriment of the emotional power characteristic of the first Gladiatorcarried by the music of composer Hans Zimmer, who did not return.

“Take the pressure”

Recycling or real artistic ambition? “He always had within him the desire to continue this story,” Connie Nielsen, who plays Lucilla, Lucius’ mother, assured AFP in an interview ahead of the premiere of Gladiator 2 in Paris.

“He looked for different entry points” for several years, until choosing to put “the relationship between Lucius and Lucilla really at the heart of the film,” added the actress, already featured in the first episode.

“I wanted to make sure the story was strong enough to handle the pressure we were going to be under, because people loved it so much Gladiator “, she insisted, evoking in particular the “spirituality” of Lucilla, confronted with the “decline” of Rome and the “destruction of all its values”.

Thanks to technological advances, Ridley Scott “actually flourished, creating an even bigger spectacle in the Colosseum,” she also said.

Have the filmmaker’s working methods changed in 25 years? “Now, things are going very quickly, he trusts his actors,” argued the actress, also delighted with her new acting partners, including Pedro Pascal, the new darling of Hollywood, starring for example in the series. The Last of Uswhose “devotion to his work” and “great generosity” on the set she praised.

Without waiting to see the reception the public will give him, the director of Blade Runner et Thelma et Louisewho did not convince with Napoleon and has not had any notable success since Alone on Mars in 2015, already has an idea of ​​the continuation of his saga, since he is working on a third part, as he confirmed to the British magazine Total Film.