The thing about Denzel Washington is that since he first graced our screens in 1981, he’s been the guy you can’t look away from. His big screen debut was years before I was born so I am fortunate enough to say that I have never known a world without Washington’s enormous onscreen presence. I have never known a moment in one of Washington’s movies when I was looking at someone else while he was in the frame. Sometimes, this works in his scene partner’s favor — Washington’s talent ricochets onto them, making them better — but in the case of Gladiator II, it works against the film’s supposed star, Paul Mescal. In every scene with the pair together, Mescal is trying his damndest to keep up, but Washington is acting circles around him, oozing movie star charisma while Mescal is still giving indie It Boy. It’s not that he’s bad, he’s just not enough. Washington makes Gladiator II watchable not just because he’s, well, Denzel Washington, but because he seems like the only one who understands how silly their subject material is and how much fun it should be to fully commit to a character in a big, popcorn blockbuster. As the scheming, blinged-out, bisexual menace, Macrinus, Washington is the movie’s bright spot and the best villain of the year.
