OPINION: Ridley Scott should've known better than to make Gladiator II

There's a lot of pressure when your first ever starring role in a Hollywood blockbuster is a Ridley Scott epic.

There's even more pressure when it's a sequel and you have to fill the boots (or in this case, sandals) of Russell Crowe playing Maximus Decimus Meridius in the OG Ridley Scott epic.

Which is why Paul Mescal deserves credit for stepping in to what has to be one of the toughest follow-up roles ever in cinema, putting in an excellent performance as Lucius Verus Aurelius, Maximus' secret son with Lucilla, played by Connie Nielson, daughter of Richard Harris' emperor Marcus Aurelius in the original movie.

Now going by the name 'Hanno' and hiding from the Romans 16 years after the death of his uncle Commodus, his new home is sacked and his wife slain (sound familiar yet?) by the legions of General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), and sold as a gladiator to Macrinus (Denzel Washington), who dusts him off, takes him to Rome and promises him vengence (seriously, stop me if you've heard this before).

Much has been made of Mescal's sports and GAA background serving him well in production, and he certainly looks the action-star part swinging a sword in a breastplate and tunic.

The action sequences too, from the opening siege-by-sea to a rhinoceros-riding gladiator to the sharktank battle in a flooded Colosseum, make for a pleasing spectacle, and history be damned with that last one, because if the Romans could have put sharks in the arena during a mock ship battle you know they would.

He's compelling when he rallies his men on the walls of Numidia and in the arena, but all his speeches suffer by comparison to what came before.

The Kildare actor shows his not-unconsiderable talent, and does a fantastic job with the material, but every time he opens his mouth you can't help but compare him to Crowe, who won the Academy Award for the original 24 years before.

Through no fault of his own he's also out-acted at every turn by the utterly supurb Pedro Pascal as the war-weary and haunted General Acacius, who's now married to Lucilla (of course), but even he's lost in an over-stuffed plot.

So too Denzel Washington, who plays power-hungry arms dealer Macrinus with a Machiavellian glee and nastiness, gets short-changed in his character reveal because even in 148 minutes of runtime, there's no time to dedicate to it - the film is too full.

The supporting actors like Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger actually have a much easier job of it, and they absolutely nail it as the despotic and psychotic twin emperors Geta and Caracalla — the personifications of a corrupted and dying Rome —  but Marcus Aurelius' "a dream that was once Rome" seems less some fragile thing this time around and more of a yolk around poor Connie Nielson's neck as Lucilla tries yet again to fulfill her father's dying wish for the Empire.

All we were missing was a cameo from the ghost of Maximus, but thankfully Russell Crowe seems to have too many reservations about this completely unnecessary sequel to get involved.

The only way to possibly enjoy this movie is to forget about the original when you're walking in — which I strongly recommend you do not watch beforehand.

Already Ridley Scott has signalled his intention to make a Gladiator III, which would take us well and truly into the "Son of Maximus" B-movie territory.

Ultimately, Gladiator II is a passable sword-and sandels flick that can't hold up under the weight of its predecessor's legacy. Ridley Scott would do well enough to leave it at that, and let sleeping dogs (and dead gladiators) lie.