300: Rise of an Empire, 2013.
Directed by Noam Murro.
Starring Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, Hans Matheson, Rodrigo Santiago, Callan Mulvey, David Wenham and Jack O’Connell.
SYNOPSIS:
A Greek general leads the charge against invading Persian forces led by the vengeful demi-god Xerxes.
It has been nearly 8 years now since Gerard Butler so violently reminded us all that ‘this’ was in fact Sparta, in Zack Snyder’s 300. This time around Snyder only returns in the role of producer, but you’d be forgiven for thinking that he’s back in the director’s chair, given the superficial ethos of 300: Rise of an Empire.
The film’s narrative occurs simultaneously to that of the first film, making this much more of a spin-off rather than a direct sequel. As it turns out, while Leonidas (Butler) and his Spartans were making their stand at Thermopylae, there were equal amounts of high-definition bloodshed going on over in Athens, and the rest of Greece in general. Here, we follow the story of Greek General Themistocles (Stapleton), in his ongoing battle against the Persian ‘God-King’ Xerxes (Santiago) and his ferocious sister Artemisia (Green). That may seem like a fairly simple premise, and it is, yet somehow it requires an opening 20 minutes of clucky exposition.
Returning to the superficial nature of the film, it’s probably fair to assume that a film helmed by Snyder is going to opt heavily for a ‘style over substance’ approach, given his back-catalogue. Add to that assumption the graphic novel source, and the fact that the original was hardly the most cerebral of films, you can probably make a reasonable estimation of what to expect from 300: ROAE. If your presumption is that this is going to be a visually stimulating but basically structured slug-fest, then you’re on the same wave-length I was heading into the cinema…
We were both wrong.
In an admirable but ill-judged move, the filmmakers have decided to turn away from the simple formula that made the original such a success. Yes, there’s plenty of gratuitous violence and it all looks fantastic, but the plot is so much more convoluted than its predecessor’s. As I’ve already alluded to, these aren’t the sort of films you go into expecting the full capacities of concentration, and yet the reasonably simple premise has been distorted out of shape into an overly-complicated, poorly-paced mess. You might argue that the filmmakers’ hands were tied by the complexities of the actual historic events, but after the first film I think we are all aware that historical accuracy is pretty low down on their list of priorities.
Fans of the source material might relish the idea of a fleshed-out plot, with the possibility that it might make for a ‘truer’ adaptation. Well, maybe that was Snyder and Co.’s intention, but I’m afraid they missed the mark when it came to the execution.
The characters are also far inferior this time around. Stapleton’s Themistocles lacks the charisma of Butler’s Leonidas, and the bro-mantic banter that made us love the scantily-clad soldiers of the original is all but missing. Eva Green is left to pout and scowl her way through the entire film, despite the fact that her she-warrior character is gifted some of the best lines. Despite this though, one saving grace is Lena Headey as Queen Cersei Gorgo. As Leonidas’ widow, Gorgo takes the role of narrator for most of this film, but later transforms into the sort of bad-ass ice-queen that Headey excels at.
It’s rare that a blockbuster sequel can shock an audience, but that’s exactly what 300: Rise of an Empire has done by somehow managing to be dumber than its predecessor. The plot-structure is a wreck, as is the pacing, whilst the forgettable characters fail to compare to the original. The epic battles and slow-motion fights are visually riveting, as to be expected, but there’s very little to enjoyed here that you can’t gain from slipping in the first film in on Blu-ray.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Jackson Ball – follow me on Twitter.
Originally published March 9, 2014. Updated April 11, 2018.
