Heading into an opening night double feature of “Gladiator 2” and “Wicked,” I was confident which film I would enjoy more. I’d heard mixed things about the “Wicked” movie (/Film’s 4 out of 10 review is not kind to the film) despite enjoying a traveling version of the stage show many years ago, and after rewatching Ridley Scott’s original “Gladiator” for the first time in at least 15 years and being impressed by it all over again, I was amped to return to the Colosseum and see what Scott and his collaborators had cooked up with their sequel.

But for me (and, I suspect, for many other folks attending a very long double feature at the theater this weekend), “Gladiator 2” ended up being a letdown while “Wicked” soared above my expectations.

There are a few flashes of freshness in Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator 2” — the Colosseum is filled with shark-infested waters in a big action set-piece, and Denzel Washington is clearly having a blast in a key supporting role — but an incredible percentage of the runtime involves rehashing beats from the first film, only with new characters. This familiarity in plotting may be Scott’s way of warning audiences about the dangers of history repeating itself if we don’t learn from our mistakes, but as a viewing experience, it feels like a drag. There’s very little life in “Gladiator 2.” Paul Mescal is a fine actor (maybe even a great one), but the script hangs him out to dry; he’s mostly stuck doing a Russell Crowe impression, but doesn’t have enough freedom to ever make this character stand out.

“Wicked,” meanwhile, absolutely flies by despite having a longer runtime. This movie had so much stacked against it: The marketing campaign is so widespread that it’s become obnoxious, the trailers weren’t great, and splitting the film in two seemed like an eye-rolling decision. But it turns out adapting “Wicked” into two movies was actually a smart decision, and director Jon M. Chu knocked it out of the park with “Part 1.” Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are both fantastic in the lead roles, there’s a vibrancy to the relationships that feels human and relatable, and despite the climactic “Defying Gravity” number admittedly being drenched in CG wonkiness, the music is so spectacular that it makes up for it.

For more about why “Wicked” won this particular cinematic battle, listen to today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast, where we speak about the movie in detail:

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