I loved the first Gladiator film, go read my review on that. This is a shameful copy of the original that fails to live up to any possible expectation of a direct sequel. This movie somehow accomplishes the feat of including and amplifying everything that was in the first, while being worse in every single way. There is more of everything, more action, more gladiators, more emperors, more Rome. But this only serves to water down the film and make everything feel empty and soulless. By trying to fit so much more into this verious of (virtually) the same story, it makes every duplicate scene and character interaction seemed incredibly rushed and poorly made. I wouldn't be directly comparing the two so much if it wasn't for the fact that the film WANTS you to, even to the point of including scenes from the original in the opening credits. Not even mentioning the historical inaccuracies, which I can forgive, the action is so poorly done (and again, rushed) that they feel like filler more than the actual meat of the runtime. The one bright spot of this movie is Washington and his character, who isn't greatly written but still is an interesting addition to this familiar narrative, thanks in large part to Denzel's unshakable acting skills. There is virtually no part of Gladiator 2 that I like as much as the first, and in most ways it falls so short of even matching that level of quality. I am starting to have serious concerns on Ridley Scott's ability to direct films for the future, although he was only half of the problem here.