The first Gladiator film changed film music, completely. It was the first time a real “prestige” film had been scored that way – you could write a book about its influence, all the reasons why nothing was the same again afterwards – but that’s for another time. Over two decades later, the sequel – the imaginatively-titled Gladiator II, so trite a title I always had to check when I read anything about it that it wasn’t a joke – has been released to a generally muted response, absent the litany of great movie stars who adorned the first one (for understandable reasons – either their characters having died, or they themselves having died) but Ridley Scott being in the saddle for a production like this at the age of 87 is a pretty remarkable feat, whatever else you say about it. Hans Zimmer scored the director’s three movies after Gladiator and then they never worked together again for some reason so it wasn’t a great surprise that he didn’t return to do this, his place taken instead by Harry Gregson-Williams, who has written most of the best music for Scott’s films post-Zimmer.
It’s always difficult for a composer to follow in another’s footsteps when those footsteps are as renowned as Zimmer’s and Gregson-Williams has done a decent enough job. The score is built on some DNA from the original – themes here and there, sounds and textures (including the voice of Lisa Gerrard) – but is its own thing. I don’t think the more “ethereal” sections of it work quite as well as Zimmer’s did – here we often hear a male vocal providing the spiritualism, but it sounds a bit more perfunctory to me – where the composer does more come into his own is in the action material, of which there is no shortage. A couple of big differences between this action music and the original’s – positively, the orchestra sounds like an orchestra this time round, and you can never beat the crisp sharpness of that purer sound, and the integration of ancient instruments means it packs quite a punch at times – but the sad thing is that it just isn’t anywhere near as memorable. I’ve been listening to music by this composer for thirty years and still don’t really know what makes him him – I’ve loved some of his music in that time, some has not been to my taste – here he’s ticking all the right boxes, but as soon as it’s finished it’s hard to think of much to say beyond “that was decent” – I doubt Zimmer was thinking “I’m going to change film music forever” with the first one, but he was thinking of doing something new and different and memorable which is always much harder on a sequel. Many of the times the score really soars – such as the fantastic “Strength and Honour” – are when Gregson-Williams directly builds on Zimmer’s music. It’s all fine, it’s obvious a load of very hard work went into creating it, it’s just missing that X-factor (or Z-factor, perhaps).
That’s the kind of review that I really enjoy reading. Short, concise, to the point and in line with my own opinion. 🙂 Just kidding. Your wondering “what makes him him” is spot on.
(btw: I wish you were on Bluesky. please consider going there, it’s so much nicer than on X.)
“What makes him him” – HGW is simply a Hans Zimmer protege/pupil who did exactly what Zimmer and Media Ventures taught him and required. I think Kingdom of Heaven is his most distinguished score still, a stand-out that however still sounded a lot like a mix of Gladiator and Black Hawk Down.
The style obviously had its prime and dominance over film music just like IDK John Williams and Alan Silvestri and others dominated with a more classical style in the 70s, 80s and 90s. You can say the classical style had more charm and IDK timeless artistic quality to it as it was all or mostly orchestra and live instruments, and the Media Ventures style was always came off a bit more like assembly line TV dinner (because it was), but each has a lot of great music in it and the peaks of the Zimmer sound like Interstellar, Gladiator are timeless too, it’s quality music. The big difference is that the classical style had more A list top composers at its peak (Newman, Silvestri, Williams, Howard, Horner) whereas the Media Ventures style was really only Zimmer as the A list top name, with apt pupils who followed his blueprint well enough, but rarely managed to really stand out (I’m struggling to remember something truly memorable from someone besides Zimmer , but I’m sure something is there – maybe Rabin). Id say electronic musicians who ventured into film music managed to make the most stand-out Zimmer inspired follow-ups – Daft Punk with Tron Legacy, Holkenborg with Fury Road. The style definitely did influence a lot and without it we probably wouldnt have stuff like Gravity from Steven Price.
Honestly considering I feel American culture in general has peaked in the 80s and 90s maybe, and I think it’s clear now it’s not going to be any bigger and better as America itself has reached its peak and is past it, it would be fitting if Zimmer closed this era with one last epic score and Gladiator II easily could have been it. But HGW did about as well as he could have and it is a good listen for fans of the original and of this style in particular, it’s a fairly fitting final big Media Ventures score which got a physical release too,if it is indeed the final one.