It’s been 24 years since “Gladiator” took the world by storm and spawned a whole new era of swords and sandals movies. Will it’s sequel “Gladiator II”, our movie for this week, do the same? We shall see. This time the main character is Lucius, who we met as a young boy in the original “Gladiator.” He’s the son of Lucilla, and it’s revealed in the trailers, the son of Maximus, Russell Crowe’s character from “Gladiator.” Lucius suffers a tragedy early in the movie and is made a slave and then rises up as a gladiator for Macrinus, played by Denzel Washington. Macrinus is not all he appears to be and is proven to be power hungry and wants to use Lucius as his instrument for power. Another main character is General Acacius, played by Pedro Pascal, who is the leader of the Roman army who fight for Emperor Geta and Emperor Caracalla, played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger respectively. Acacius isn’t exactly excited anymore to be dispatched like an errand boy by these emperors to kill people all over the world and conquer lands. Connie Nielsen returns to play Lucilla and as she sees a particular gladiator fight in the Colosseum, she starts to get a feeling that she knows this man. All of these worlds will collide. Sometimes sequels surpass the quality of the original. Does “Gladiator II” accomplish that feat? Check out this episode to find out! “Gladiator II” also stars Derek Jacobi, Yuval Gonen, Rory McCann, Peter Mensah, Matt Lucas, Tim McInnerny, Alexander Karim and Lior Raz.