It’s been sixteen years since "Maximus" (Russell Crowe) met his end, and now ancient Rome is ruled by twins "Geta" (Joseph Quinn) and "Caracalla" (Fred Hechinger), with their general "Acacias" (Pedro Pascal) still expanding the empire. Acacias leads an attack on the home of "Nanno" (Paul Mescal) and his wife, "Arishat" (Yuval Gonen), which doesn’t go according to plan; soon after, Arishat has died and Nanno is a slave belonging to the scheming "Macrinus" (Denzel Washington). Macrinus is sending him toward the Colosseum to provide entertainment for the emperors and their cousin “Lucilla” (Connie Nielsen). What follows is a polished and visually appealing retread of the original film, nodding to "Spartacus," but I found it hard to get past how predictable everything was. The story unfolds in episodes, with too much dialogue packed in, and while Mescal puts in effort, his performance felt largely lacking in charm and stiff, particularly after the rather unbelievable family history is revealed. Sir Derek Jacobi makes a brief appearance as the returning senator "Gracchus," reprising his role from 2000, but it doesn’t amount to much. The one person who really caught my attention was Quinn's portrayal of the imperial character—he and his eccentric brother seem on the verge of some kind of inbred, sexually fluid insanity. Washington does a decent job as the manipulative slave owner, but he isn’t given enough material to truly distinguish himself from what is ultimately a group of underdeveloped characters who fail to convey any real sense of the decadence and corruption of this world. Like Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven" (2005), the battle sequences are excellent and full of action, as are the combat scenes in the massive marble arena filled with screaming spectators and rhinos. However, I’m afraid that the superficial characters didn’t quite work to keep things interesting, and the plot was too flimsy to sustain a couple of hours—it could have been so much better. It's worth seeing on a large screen to appreciate the creatively designed visuals, but I left feeling pretty let down, unfortunately.

Source on TMDB