Nearly a quarter-century ago, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator was released in the summer of 2000 to critical and commercial success, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of that year and taking home five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for its star Russell Crowe. In many ways, the first Gladiator perfectly demarcates the turn of the century for Hollywood: a historical blockbuster paying tribute to the swords-and-sandals epics of old while embracing the digital future the industry was barreling toward. Arriving just before the triumvirate of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and Spider-Man, which would define the CGI-heavy shape of the 21st-century blockbuster, Gladiator found the perfect balance between the practical and the pixel—a balance sorely missing in its sequel.

In fact, Scott’s Gladiator sequel more closely resembles an infamous trilogy of prequels, with overqualified actors acutely aware of the type of movie they’re in, delivering hammy performances that clash with the more self-serious members of the cast who didn’t get the memo. Almost all of this unfolds against a backwash of murky, textureless digital set extensions and a Dr. Dolittle movie’s worth of digitally rendered animals. Gladiator II, despite being bigger in every conceivable way, fails to recapture the visceral glory of its predecessor—a failure made all the more glaring by the film’s incessant belief that if it repeats enough moments and lines from the first movie, you will be entertained. This is not a sequel that seeks to shock but a Force Awakens-esque retread that skews so closely to its source text that its resemblance to the first Gladiator only exacerbates how far it has fallen.

Picking up sixteen years after the death of Marcus Aurelius, Gladiator II introduces the audience to a Rome that doesn’t resemble the fragile dream its emperor once preached to Maximus Decimus Meridius. Corruption is at an all-time high under the rule of a pair of campy emperors, twins Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger), whose greed has stretched the armies of Rome thin with years of conquests. Rome’s greatest general, Marcus Acacius (a stoic Pedro Pascal), leads the Roman army in an invasion of Numidia, where we meet our hero, “Hanno” (Paul Mescal, absolutely jacked out of his mind). “Hanno” is a mere foot soldier who serves alongside his wife Arishat, but since this is a Gladiator movie, you’ve probably already deduced that she’s not long for this world. With Numidia claimed for the glory of Rome and his wife murdered on the orders of General Acacius, “Hanno” is sold into slavery and purchased by the man who should be the focus of Gladiator II: Macrinus.

Portrayed by a certified member of the acting Mount Rushmore, Denzel Washington, Macrinus initially seems to embody the Oliver Reed role of Proximo from the first film: a former gladiator-turned-stablemaster in search of his next champion. Like all great fight promoters, Macrinus has a methodology for picking his stars. Long before he places “Hanno” in the (literally) shark-infested waters of the Colosseum, Macrinus identifies the trait he values in his fighters above all else: rage. Macrinus makes a deal with “Hanno” to deliver him the head of General Acacius, provided he performs accordingly for Macrinus.

By centering the film around Macrinus, who is by far the best part of the movie (that third Oscar talk for Denzel is only half hyperbole), Gladiator II could have subverted the Joseph Campbellian hero’s journey of Maximus—a journey it struggles to adequately graft onto “Hanno” over 148 minutes. Unlike Proximo, Macrinus has much loftier ambitions, and by the time the movie decides that’s a bad thing, the audience has already fallen victim to Denzel’s trademark charm. You see, “Hanno,” as already revealed by the marketing of Gladiator II, is actually Lucius Verus Aurelius, the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen, returning to the role but with a mostly thankless task). Cast out of the empire for fear that usurpers would seek to kill the sole heir to the throne, Lucilla promised her son she would retrieve him once it was safe in Rome. But when that safety never materialized, Lucius grew cold and bitter, rejecting his Roman heritage and embracing the ways of the “barbarians” that Rome seeks to conquer. Despite his hatred of his motherland, Lucius will still break out the odd verse of Virgil’s poetry—giving Macrinus the first clue to the young man’s true heritage.

In Lucius, Macrinus has not just a prizefighter but a tool to tear down the Roman Empire from the inside out. A movie that embraced this premise rather than chafing against it would have been more engaging than the tawdry rehash Gladiator II stubbornly remains. Then again, this premise would require a villain as despicable as Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus, and even the combined efforts of Quinn and Hechinger can’t compete. With no menacing force to root against and a protagonist whose journey feels set in stone from the opening shot, Gladiator II resorts to a third-act heel turn that failed to turn this audience member in the right direction.

Rome—or at least the dream Marcus Aurelius had for it—is really America: a place where anyone of any faith, race, gender, or creed can coexist in harmony. Somehow, that dream feels even more fragile in 2024 than it would have in 180 CE. American screenwriter David Scarpa, whose script somehow manages to pale in comparison to the constantly rewritten script of the first Gladiator, seems intent on communicating this message, while British director Ridley Scott (as on-brand as ever) couldn’t care less. For Scott, Gladiator II feels like an excuse to flex his muscles directing big set pieces. To his credit, the 86-year-old legend still has the juice, but the lack of control exerted over the rest of the production poisons this sequel.

Ultimately, Gladiator II is a tale of two movies: the exaggerated Senate-intrigue movie that Hechinger, Quinn, and Washington inhabit is far more fun to watch, while the stern, straightforward hero’s journey that Mescal, Nielsen, and Pascal are stuck in is decidedly less enjoyable. Washington lights up the screen like only he can, and the action largely delivers despite lacking the thrilling tactility of the first film. Gladiator II is not a bad movie—just an average sequel to a great movie, which is more devastating than an outright failure. When the carrot of Maximus fighting his way through hell Dante’s Inferno-style has been dangled in front of an audience for so many years, it’s hard to accept a sequel that feels chained to its predecessor like an enslaved gladiator, unable to earn its freedom.