Movie Review: 300: Rise of an Empire
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
The new film 300: Rise of an Empire is a follow-up, of sorts, to 300 (2006). Zack Snyder is still the lead writer on this new incarnation but the director of the new film is Noam Murro. Murro’s only prior feature directing experience was a film called Smart People (2008) and it is a good guess you didn’t see it as it grossed less than $10M domestic. It is interesting that the new film bookends its predecessor. The timeline of 300: Rise of an Empire starts prior to 300 and ends after it. You don’t see that very often. The people making this movie clearly expect the audience to grasp that complexity with little difficulty and in the current spoon-fed culture that Hollywood is known for that is a bit impressive. The creators here boldly launch into a visceral tale that parallels not only the initial film’s violence and visual style but the actual story timeline from the last film as well. Unfortunately, the approach to the film is far more admirable than the actual end product.
The Greek general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) is the hero of this tale that examines the naval battle between two vastly different military forces. The Greeks are fast and maneuverable on the water but there are very few ships available to Themistokles. The Persians, on the other hand, are an endless horde upon the sea with slow but nearly invincible dreadnoughts at their disposal. These invaders, led by their field commander Artemisia (Eva Green) can literally win battles by sheer weight of numbers if need be. Themistokles is attempting throughout the film to unite the Greek city-states under one war banner to fend off the impending Persian invasion that has been ordered by the God-King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro). The flaw in our hero’s plan is that the fiercest force in Greece, the Spartans, are not part of the coalition yet. The leader of the Sparta, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), has little interest in anything outside of her borders.
The film answers some questions that the prior film had left dangling, which is good. We learn the origin of Xerxes (and Artemisia as well). We also learn how Gorgo handles the loss of Leonidas. We are also given the back-story of Greece at large and not just the goings on of one single city-state, Sparta. The city-states are fraught with political infighting as any democracy would be. Unifying the disparate interests for the sake of mutual survival would not seem too big a concept for any leader to grasp. At least that is what Themistokles thinks. Shades of historical foreshadowing to all the democracies to follow are evident here.
The best part of this movie is the action. There is plenty of it. It is definitely an R-rated action flick. There is a ton of CGI blood and plenty of mayhem. Murro clearly loves the first film and copies that hyper-stylized cinematic style religiously. This is not a bad thing – it’s sort of what I expected. Murro does nail the look of the prior film as well. The fillips he does, however, attempt to add onto the over-the-top style that Snyder utilized do not work at all.
The worst part of this movie is the classic action movie trap – when there is no action, it is plodding and predictable. I should also mention the laughable moments that were not meant to be. There is at least one dramatic scene and one action scene in this film where you will be breathless from laughter rather than suspense.
Sullivan Stapleton in “300: Rise of an Empire.”
Photo by Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture – © 2013 Legendary Pictures.
The oddest part of the film was the decision to make the protagonist, Xerxes, stand aside as his military commander, Artemisia, takes the lead. Forget about the startling fact that the role is played by a woman (hard to believe from a historical viewpoint certainly) it just seems very un-villain-like. He is seven or eight feet tall right so you would reasonably expect a much more active role from Xerxes.
It is tough to be a sequel. The comparisons to the original are inevitable. Stapleton’s Themistokles is simply not nearly as compelling as Gerard Butler’s King Leonidas. It is sort of like trying to out-Patton General Patton himself. Doesn’t matter how loud you yell. He can easily growl louder. 300: Rise of an Empire was not likely to match the prior film, but this film fell way short of being even the also-ran that you might have hoped for.
Steven Gahm
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