Gladiator II Belongs to Denzel

The pleasures of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II are numerous: There’s Paul Mescal as scrappy gladiator Lucius, bent on kicking as much Roman ass as possible. Pedro Pascal is a stalwart general who realizes with regret that he’s sacrificed his own morals for the glory of Rome. The ever-regal Connie Nielsen returns, from the first film, as Lucilla, daughter of the late Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who’s dismayed that her father’s ideals have been betrayed by the current emperors of the republic, a duo of cretinous brothers played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger. Even if Gladiator II is essentially an unapologetic retread of its predecessor, all of these actors are fun to watch—though none stands taller, literally or figuratively, than Denzel Washington, as slave-turned-schemer Macrinus. A little Shakespeare, a little vaudeville, Denzel’s Macrinus keeps the movie spinning. Arrayed in a seemingly endless wardrobe of silken robes and more groovy brutalist pendant necklaces than a ’60s swinger, he blesses the movie with generous dashes of elegance and kitsch. “What’s your native language?” he asks the recently captured warrior Lucius upon their first meeting, before adding gallantly, “I speak them all.” You don’t doubt it for a minute.

Gladiator II is OK when Denzel’s off-screen, but sensational when he’s on it. (It feels disrespectfully unspecific to call Denzel by his surname. There are so many Washingtons; there’s only one Denzel.) What makes the performance great is its insouciance; it’s both precise and feather-light. And it’s what a great actor can do when he’s set free to have fun, to laugh at himself a little bit. Greatness doesn’t always mean grandness—sometimes mischievous agility has greater value. Denzel’s Macrinus is gravitas and comic relief in one package. And his performance is a sterling example of how an actor can own a movie without sabotaging it, opening space for his fellow actors even as he rules his own golden corner of it.

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It almost feels like a disservice to call Denzel one of our greatest living actors. That makes him sound monolithic and predictable, as if he has so often fulfilled—or surpassed—our expectations that he’s no longer capable of surprising us. Denzel has been great, in pictures like Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, in Joel Coen’s Macbeth, in Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day, in Norman Jewison's The Hurricane. But he’s capable of great lightness as well as heavy, somber roles; his versatility only burnishes the glow around him. In Gladiator II, he both summons his majestic powers and jabs at them with the agility of a boxer. And though Macrinus—brilliant, conniving, vain—is nothing like the characters Denzel played earlier in his career, this performance calls back to his breezy charm in movies like Carl Franklin’s Out of Time (2003) and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), or Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala (1991). An actor’s reputation can sometimes feel like a heavy yoke; in Gladiator II, Denzel tosses it off and has a blast, taking the audience with him. This is one performance you don’t want to watch at home, alone. You’ll want to see how Denzel works his magic with a crowd, preferably a big one.

How can you deprive yourself of the big-screen vision of Denzel, with his mighty squinting smile, his silver dusting of hair, striding onto the scene while swirling an opulent brocade cloak around his sturdy frame? (No one swirls a cloak like Denzel.) As Macrinus surveys Lucius’ wiry biceps and surly demeanor, sizing him up for the arena, he spins out one of the movie’s most ridiculous lines, a kind of outrageous-on-purpose phony-baloney Shakespeare: “Rage pours out of you like milk—from a whore’s tit. You’ll be quite the fighter!” He knows how loopy the line is, and rides it like a Tilt-a-Whirl. When one of the idiot emperors asks him, slyly, if he might not be angling for a powerful position on the senate, he demurs with velvety faux modesty. “No,” he asserts convincingly, “I don’t even know how to use an abacus.” And he wraps up a speech outlining his outsized ambitions with a great show-biz capper: “That, my friend, is politicssssssss!” he purrs, turning that final sibilance into a serpent’s hiss. It’s intense, it’s nutso, it’s fabulous.

We should remind ourselves, though, that Denzel has always had a huge capacity for delight. Perhaps you remember his appearance on Letterman in early 2008 when, after finishing his own segment, he chose to remain onstage so he could meet another of David Letterman’s guests that evening. That guest was Don Rickles, the late, great comedian who wrought garden-variety putdowns into miniature works of art. Denzel beamed as Rickles hit the stage and wrapped him in a bear hug (or three). Then Rickles sat in the chair between Denzel and Letterman and proceeded to roast the latter mercilessly, for Denzel’s benefit. Denzel didn’t just laugh at every joke; the sound coming from his mouth was more like a schoolboy’s giggle. He sat quietly, rapt in the presence of a guy he’d clearly loved since he was a kid. Denzel is very serious about his craft, and perhaps about himself. But his well of inner joy may be the secret ingredient of his success. In Gladiator II, he revels in Macrinus’ pure, calculating ambition as if it were a bubble bath. It’s pure decadence, with a wink.