Published Oct 20, 2026, 7:45 PM EDT
Chris is a Senior News Writer for Collider. He can be found in an IMAX screen, with his eyes watering and his ears bleeding for his own pleasure. He joined the news team in 2022 and accidentally fell upwards into a senior position despite his best efforts.
For reasons unknown, he enjoys analyzing box office receipts, giant sharks, and has become known as the go-to man for all things Bosch, Mission: Impossible and Christopher Nolan in Collider’s news division. Recently, he found himself yeehawing along to the Dutton saga on the Yellowstone Ranch.
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When a film icon like Russell Crowe speaks out, slamming your movie for what he decries as a lack of a moral core, it certainly makes people take notice. Especially when you’re Ridley Scott, and the movie is a 148-minute historical epic sequel to one of your most beloved, critically adored films. That also means eyes on the movie, which is exactly what’s about to start happening on Netflix from tomorrow.
Gladiator II*** ***picks up years after the original Gladiator, following Lucius as he is pulled into the brutal world of the Colosseum like Maximus before him. The cast includes Paul Mescal (Aftersun, All of Us Strangers) as Lucius, Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us, The Mandalorian) as General Marcus Acacius, **Denzel Washington (Training Day, Malcolm X) as Macrinus, Connie Nielsen **(Wonder Woman, Mission to Mars) as Lucilla, Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things, A Quiet Place: Day One) as Emperor Geta, and Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus, Thelma) as Emperor Caracalla.
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
However, Crowe wasn’t sold on the story. Last year, Crowe described the movie as a cautionary tale about misunderstanding what made the 2000 original resonate in the first place. “I think the recent sequel that, you know, we don’t have to name out loud is a really unfortunate example of even the people in that engine room not actually understanding what made the first one special,” said Crowe. “It wasn’t the pomp. It wasn’t the circumstance. It wasn’t the action. It was the moral core.”
According to Crowe, keeping Maximus morally intact was a struggle for him every day on set while going head-to-head with Scott. “The thing is, there was a daily fight on that set. It was a daily fight to keep that moral core of the character. The amount of times they suggested sex scenes and stuff like that for Maximus, it’s like you’re taking away his power.”
Crowe explained that studio-driven attempts to make Maximus more traditionally “blockbuster-friendly” would have completely undermined the character’s foundation. “So you’re saying at the same time he had this relationship with his wife, he was fucking this other girl? What are you talking about? It’s crazy.”
Gladiator II streams on Netflix starting October 21.
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