Gladiator II review: A helpful lesson on hitting rock bottom

When Gladiator came out in 2000, it was widely hailed as one of the best films of the year. It went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor, among others. Time will tell if Gladiator II will follow suit, but it seems unlikely, and that’s alright. 

The new movie was still a fun film and a worthy entry into a series that could continue to expand if director Ridley Scott has his way. Given that Scott turns 87 at the end of this month, however, it’s unlikely we’d have to wait another twenty-four years to see it. A quicker turnaround would likely work better with how this film ends anyway (though I won’t spoil any of those details in this review).

So with that said, let’s discuss the film and then take a look at what, at least for me, was its most lasting lesson. 

Where Gladiator II got history right

Gladiator II is set sixteen years after the events of the first film. The story centers on Lucius, the son of Lucilla and heir-apparent to the title of Caesar following his uncle Commodus’ death at the end of Gladiator. Lucius ends up in the North African kingdom of Numidia after he is forced to flee Rome. 

There, living under the name Hanno, he makes a new life for himself. He marries a local woman and seems happy as part of their people. That all changes, however, after the Roman navy comes literally crashing into their doorstep. 

Following that initial battle, Hanno is sold into slavery, becomes a gladiator, and is forced to come to terms with a past he couldn’t escape and a future that continues to press in on him. In many ways, the plot mirrors the first Gladiator almost to a fault, but the differences are enough to keep it interesting and entertaining. 

The part that I found myself going back to after the film concluded, however, was the way that it took the hope for a brighter future after Gladiator’s conclusion and threw it away in order to embrace the chaos that was far more descriptive of that period in Rome’s history. While both the first and second movies took quite a few liberties with that history, that was one part they got right, and Gladiator II was better for it. 

That embrace of the reality that your situation doesn’t have to get better just because you have the chance for it to improve is also where I think we find the most important lesson this film has to teach us today. 

Why “rock bottom” is a lie

The idea of hitting rock bottom is a common way of describing what people often consider the worst times in their lives. There’s a problem with that notion, though.

You see, most people speak of hitting rock bottom in retrospect. They assume that’s the worst their situation could have gotten because it’s the worst they experienced before turning their lives around and trying to make real progress toward redemption and recovery. The truth is, though, rock bottom is typically less of an unavoidable end point than a cliff onto which people land while falling down a practically endless abyss. 

To put it another way, it’s only rock bottom if you choose not to fall any further. 

While that may seem like a dispiriting way to look at the low points in our lives, understanding that reality is an important reminder that, on this side of eternity, we always have the choice to stop falling. And God stands ready to help us do just that. 

CS Lewis once said:

“If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back the soonest is the most progressive man . . . going back is the quickest way on.”

That idea of turning around and going back in the opposite direction is exactly what the biblical notion of repentance means. And the sooner we embrace the reality that we need to change, the shorter the distance we’ll have to walk in order to reach the path God intended for us from the start. 

So where do you need to repent today? However you would answer that question, know that it will never get easier to turn around than it is right now. 

So ask for God’s help, then commit to doing the hard work—in his strength rather than your own—to make whatever changes are necessary to truly repent from the sins in your life. 

Will you start today?