General Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton), of Athens, has his hands full defending Greece from King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and the Persian military. If he could only convince Spartan King Leonidas to unite Greece and become that much stronger. Leonidas, of course, meets his fate with his 300, bested by the same golden god king.
Leading the Persian military is Artemisia (Eva Green.) She is a woman who was kidnapped as a little girl in Greece and remained a slave until she fought back, extremely well. Trained by Persia’s finest warriors, Artemisia will need every strategy she’s learned to defeat the crafty Themistocles.
We say, “It’s part two of 300, you’ll get what you expect.”
TAYLOR: Often my feelings on a film change between the time I see it and when I begin writing about it.
This is due to the re-examination of my thoughts on the film and it usually changes my scoring. 300: Rise of an Empire exemplifies this phenomenon. When I was in the theatre, I was excited and occasionally amazed, I was having fun.
Now looking back on the experience, I feel a kind of shame. For this is a beautiful rendered, albeit exaggerated, cartoon world of hyper-real violence.
A place where the moon sits giant in the sea, where blood flows from wounds like a geyser in slow motion, where 3D dust floats in sunbeams that come from dark, brooding skies. We’re not supposed to find the film realistic, quite the opposite. We’re supposed to revel in its shallow fakery. I did, so it works.
HOWE: I know what you mean, yet my excitement for the movie lasted a whole ten minutes. The fight scenes, going from ultra-fast to a snail’s pace slicing through flesh and bone, can only be shot so many ways before it becomes a little too much.
When I watched the original 300 for the first time, it blew me away with its effects and how it was shot. The second time not so much, especially with the stupid narrating over the top of it. With 300:Rise of an Empire, I felt conned as this is the same movie just set at sea.
TAYLOR: It is very much the same as the first, only the novelty may have worn off a bit. Such as it is, fans of 300 will likely not be disappointed.
I thought it was slightly less stirring than the original, with perhaps one too many fiery speeches. If you enjoyed the first film, or you’re a fan of brutal, graphic novel style cartoon violence, by all means see it on the big screen in “glorious” 3D.
Even if you missed the original 300, you might find this stylized tale of the ancient war fun to watch, just leave your scruples at home.
— Taylor gives 300: Rise of an Empire 3 million sit-ups out of 5.
— Howe gives it 2.5 over the top speeches out of 5.
The film is currently showing at the Galaxy Cinemas in Vernon.
