I saw Gladiator 2. I had no intention of seeing it but my dad mentioned going to see it and I couldn't say no to that. I'll preface this and say I didn't have high hopes and expected wokeness throughout.
Overall, I enjoyed the film. It's not as tight as the first one which I watched again recently, but it is enjoyable and the characters were good/decent enough. Denzel is not the emperor as first assumed, but his character has good development (probably the best). There's quite a few actors from the original in small scenes and it tied in well.
Action is fine. Not as good as the original in my view but it was exciting enough. It felt like the political aspect was the most important thing in this film but I enjoyed that at the end.
For the woke aspects I only noticed a few things. A female soldier who's girl power moment ended poorly (as one would expect in real life). It lasts for moments and didn't detract. There's a line about Romans stealing land (in Africa, lulz). There's a black roman soldier at one point. Just one. My history may be wrong, but I doubt this was accurate. Then there's a line about Rome being a refuge for all that seemed iffy. That said, theres one key plot aspect that I can't believe made it through. Spoiler, but a former slave who wants revenge gets dunked on and the views of his old white master win. Don't know how that made it in.
All in all, decent movie. Maybe not theater worthy but I enjoyed it despite zero interest.
I turned it off as soon as I saw stronk empowered wahmen at the start. There is no way her death motivated the protagonist the way Marcus Aurelius was motivated by the death of his family.
Her death makes him angry. He's captured after this and it's just a small narrative piece about why he wants to kill Pedro.
Aurelius was murdered by his family, so that would be a good trick…
I saw a review by Disparu, I think, and he pointed out the character's wife was the only female soldier and targeting the general directly, so they kill her in battle. It's kind of an expected thing, which makes the guy being mad about it weird.
Also I'm kinda irritated they retconned the dude to be Maximus' son. It's not necessary.
I think Gladiator II, is Ridley Scott writing the original Gladiator story he wanted to tell, without the studio interference and constant rewrites