Buy it... for a highly intelligent, textural continuation of the franchise's music without the whiffs of plagiarism, Harry Gregson-Williams striving for unique authenticity in superb vocalized passages.

Avoid it... if you expect the thematic narrative of the sequel score to make any sense, the wrong Hans Zimmer theme reprised and the new ones failing to impress.

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Gregson- Williams

Gladiator II: (Harry Gregson-Williams) In Ridley Scott's vision of ancient Rome, if there isn't a historically accurate outcome that's depressing enough for a film, then disregard history and make up a story in which nearly everyone you care about gets killed. Almost immediately after the immense critical and popular acclaim for 2000's Gladiator, the director sought to produce a sequel. It took two decades to realize that continuation, but it cranks up the tragedy and stupidity to even greater levels for a more sour tale of death, corruption, and revenge. The son of Lucilla, the sister of asshole Emperor Commodus, seen as a little boy in Gladiator, is now thrust into the same spirit of despair experienced by Maximus in the prior film. Revealed to be that former commander's son, Lucius must avenge the death of his own far-away wife at the hands of the Romans by returning to the capital as a slave, fight as a gladiator in the famed Colosseum, and vanquish his enemies to restore a proper government to the empire. Sound familiar? One thing is for certain: Any perceived victory by Maximum or Lucius for the betterment of Rome will instead lead to everything going to shit within a decade or two, because that's the narrative that Scott and Hollywood demand to fuel sequels. The 2024 film is as unsatisfying intellectually as it is emotionally, the movie twisting history and its important Roman figures badly to maximize drama. You also witness ridiculous spectacles that defy logic, including a man riding a rhinoceros into battle, sharks in the naval battles within the arena, and a little Planet of the Apes action along the way. Audiences don't go to Gladiator to engage their brains, however, and Scott knows this. Adequate blood splatter and morbid melodrama is all that matters, and the sequel delivers on that goal. As for the music, composer Hans Zimmer wasn't bothered whatsoever by historical inaccuracies in his immensely popular score for Gladiator, a work with tones and production values that never fit the setting all that well. Audiences loved it anyway.

While the mainstream recalls the Lisa Gerrard and Klaus Badelt portions of the Gladiator soundtrack for the afterlife concept summarized in "Now We are Free," few know or care that the score resulted in Zimmer and the studio being sued by the Holst Foundation in 2006 for plagiarism of Gustav Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War" from "The Planets." Between the new age style of Gerrard, the overbearing electronic post-production techniques of Zimmer, and the Holst issues, Gladiator is a tremendously flawed score despite nailing aspects of the concept perfectly along the way. When it came time for Gladiator II, Zimmer had no interest in being involved, stating that he didn't think he could improve upon the first score. (Considering all of the above, that's a fairly amusing statement. Perhaps he simply didn't want to get sued again.) Also a frequent collaborator with the director (and his late brother, Tony) is composer Harry Gregson-Williams, who is not as active in the mainstream in the 2020's as he had been in decades past but had the absolute, full blessing of Zimmer for this sequel assignment. The seventh collaboration between Gregson-Williams and the director, Gladiator II promised to allow the composer to return to some of his great action of the 2000's. He was tasked with recording about 100 minutes of score in the film, and after reading the script's description of Lucius essentially becoming Maximus by the end of the tale, he also made sure to adapt Zimmer's material into what he claims is five or six minutes of the work. (In reality, the influence is more pervasive than that, but Gregson-Williams does dilute the Zimmer melodies so that they have a more original feel to them for much of the narrative.) So enthused was Zimmer by this strategy that he listened in remotely to some of the sessions to hear his former assistant's smarts in action. One benefit that Gregson-Williams always brings to the table is his ongoing quest for historical flavors of instrumentation, a trait that rivals him with Thomas Newman and Mychael Danna in his research and employment of unusual sounds. In this case, he traveled to northern Spain to research ancient instruments.

The wide instrumental palette in Gladiator II, along with its remarkably crisp recording, produces the score's best attributes. While a robust orchestra is employed as the base, the composer's specialty instrumentation includes Celtic carnyx (horn), Roman cornu (horn), Greek aulos (pipe), Iberian horn, Finnish kantele (zither), Iranian santur (dulcimer), violin precursor GuitarViol, and ney and other ancient flutes. Familiar performers from Zimmer's Remote Control studio include Richard Harvey on the ethnic flutes and Martin Tillman on electric cello, and Gregson-Williams also approached the Viol Consort Fretwork for ancient violin tones, providing the viola de gamba tones heard in the work. The "primitive horns," as the composer terms them, largely represent Ancient Rome. Just as impressive is the composer's varied vocal handling that reminds of James Newton Howard's ethnic preferences from 10+ years prior. The vocals are supplied a wet ambience, with almost Jerry Goldsmith-inspired Echoplex effects at times. A half dozen solo performers include Gerrard returning for limited new recording. One sample carries over from John Powell's 1999 score for Endurance. The vocal layering is sometimes so prominent that a cue like "Defiance" offers percussive and vocal inflection reminiscent of the Black Panther scores. As typical to Gregson-Williams' preferences, a very subtle electronic presence in Gladiator II is well handled. There exists none of the inauthenticity of Zimmer's trademark sound, no moment like in "The Battle" from the first score when you swear you're hearing a bank of synthesizers performing trial runs for Pirates of the Caribbean. Because Gregson-Williams is far lighter with his touch, the bass region in Gladiator II is far less pronounced, both in the orchestral portion and absence of the new age elements. There is not much heaviness to the weight of the recording, therefore, and some listeners may find it too artisan for their liking. Some of this feeling will exist because the score really has only a small handful of action cues, with ensemble highlights along these lines often short-lived, as in the outstanding early portions of "I Need You to Do This." Some cues are just narratively underdeveloped, including foremost "Let the Gods Decide," reinforcing this score's biggest problem: its themes.

Gregson-Williams initially generated much hype about his strategy of retaining the Gerrard and Badelt theme for the afterlife in Gladiator II and only building towards its formal announcement after much dabbling with its structures beforehand. In fact, little two-note phrases everywhere in the score are plucked from Zimmer's score for integration in all corners here, and that's fine. But Gregson-Williams completely defies logic by choosing to reprise the "Earth" (wheat fields) and "Elysium" (afterlife) themes in this score. These ideas were specific to Maximus' journey to Elysium to be with his dead wife and son, and that flirtation with the afterlife is what drove the new age elements of that score as well. There are indeed some parallels between Maximus' narrative and that of his other son, Lucius, but Gregson-Williams handles Lucius' own familial spiritualism with a completely new, distinct theme of yearning and sadness. He applies the "Elysium" theme of "Now We Are Free" fame to Lucius' ascendance through power in Rome instead, taking the idea to represent the unification of forces behind him at the end of the picture. Yes, Zimmer allowed the "Elysium" theme as a victorious statement at the height of "Barbarian Horde," but that use was for a different purpose towards Maximus' end goal: to join his dead wife rather than rule Rome. Instead, for Lucius, Gregson-Williams needed to reprise Zimmer's other primary theme from Gladiator: Maximus' own battle anthem. This leadership theme is heard several times in the first film, prominently in the early battle sequence and then later towards the end of "Barbarian Horde." Perhaps the lack of any use of Maximus' theme in Gladiator II is an intentional artifact of the Holst Foundation's lawsuit, because Gregson-Williams clearly didn't want to go there. The decision doesn't make any intellectual sense, though, and causes the sequel score to sound like a cheap capitulation to the franchise's reliance upon the "Elysium" theme and Gerrard's vocals even if they don't really make much logical sense any further. The wholesale reprise of the prior score's "Now We are Free" recording is an immense disappointment given all the toil that Gregson-Williams put into the newly recorded score material to give it a distinct sound. Crowd-pleasers can be great in some circumstances, but in this case, the score suffers as a result of the nostalgia.

Average:		2.93 Stars
*****		26
****		46
***		67
**		48
*		32
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Rating prediction ChubDolphin - December 2, 2024, at 12:34 a.m.

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• 1. Gladiator II Overture (3:01) • 2. Lucius, Arishat and the Roman Invasion (8:34) • 3. I'll Wait for You (5:51) • 4. Ostia (4:11) • 5. Angry Baboons (2:00) • 6. Strength and Honor (3:21) • 7. Acacius Returns (1:26) • 8. City of Rome (1:55) • 9. Defiance (0:55) • 10. I See Him in You (2:59)

• 11. Acacius in the Colosseum (6:43) • 12. Let the Gods Decide (4:08) • 13. Macrinus' Plan (3:34) • 14. I Need You to Do This (3:52) • 15. Smooth Is The Descent (4:22) • 16. Now That I Have Found You (2:43) • 17. Echoes in Eternity (2:15) • 18. War, Real War (3:30) • 19. The Dream Is Lost (2:45) • 20. Now We Are Free* (4:18)

The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.