300: Rise of an Empire

Rated R / 1 hr 42 min / Action - Drama - War

What is it about?

Leonidas and his 300 have fallen, but Xerxes and his army are still on the move. He wants to conquer all of Greece, and it's not going to conquer itself. Enter Artemesia who leads Xerxes armies against the remainder of the island's city-states. Themistokles is trying to unite Greece, but the Spartans don't want to fight. They would rather remember the 300 who fell and polish their swords. He tries his best to defend Greece from Artemesia's navy.

You will like it if...

You like decent action movies with subpar scripts. They try to recapture the magic of the first 300 film, but fail miserably. The look of the movie is similar, but the blood spatters don't look quite right. Also in spots the action scenes are filmed in that ultra zoom in so you can't see anything style that is awful and should be eradicated. The naval battles add another interesting aspect to the action.  The script for this one is poorly written. The original 300 comic was written by Frank Miller who has penned some great comic stories. The movie script followed the comic pretty closely. This sequel is based on the comic Xerxes. Never heard of it? That's because Frank Miller still hasn't finished it. No doubt the final product will be better than this movie adaptation of an unfinished product. Eva Green is one of the few bright spots in this movie. She is fantastic here, and it's worth seeing this movie just for her performance. She still can't save it and she gets almost no help from the rest of the cast. If Sullivan Stapleton had been given some more iconic lines similar to what Gerard Butler had then this could have been much better. Unfortunately he was only able to give cookie cutter inspirational speaches just before the battles. They all sounded as if they could have come from any number of other movies. The ending is unbearably silly. I'm not going to give it away, but it makes no sense why the Queen of the Spartans is there or even involved.  This movie attempts to wear the shell of the original 300 movie, but it lacks the swagger and style of the original.