Scott’s return to the Roman arena is something of a repeat, but it’s still a thrilling spectacle and Mescal a formidable lead. We are entertained

What’s Latin for “Groundhog Day”? Once upon a time, Russell Crowe’s beefy hero Maximus in Ridley Scott’s sword-and-sandal classic Gladiator was the honest soldier outside the snickering metropolitan elite, out to gain vengeance and redeem Roman honour in the blood-spattered arena, his raw courage exposing the politicians’ contemptible decadence. His defiant cry “Are you not entertained?” spoke to the showbiz-political complex of our own time and when it was alleged last year that most men thought about ancient Rome every day , the suspicion was that what they were actually thinking about was … that film.

Now we are a generation along, and little has changed, in fact almost nothing. This sequel is watchable and spectacular, with the Colosseum created not digitally but as a gobsmacking 1-to-1 scale physical reconstruction with real crowds. Yet this film is weirdly almost a next-gen remake, effectively reincarnating almost every single narrative component of the original in a variant form, the events of the first film echoing in franchise eternity.