300: Rise of an Empire (2014)
Certified: 15
Duration: 102 minutes
Directed by: Noam Murro
Starring: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Rodrigo Santoro, Lena Heade, Hans Matheson, Callan Mulvey, David Wenham, Jack O’Connell, Andrew Tiernan, Yigal Naor, Andrew Pleavin, Ben Turner
KRS release
The sequel to 300 is set in 480BC when the god king, the Persian Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), is still intent on reducing the Greek city states to rubble.
He has King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and his army of 300 Spartans to face on one side and the Greek fleet on the other. His large fleet is led by Artemisia (Eva Green) who was born a Greek but has an innate hatred for the Greeks and is all out to please Xerxes. On the Greek side, there is general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton), who had killed Xerxes’s father and triggered off the events that led to Xerxes becoming the god king and made him turn his eyes on Greece. He tries to convince Queen Gorgo (Lerna Headey) and her Spartans but does not succeed. Instead he builds around him a force of men from all walks of life. This includes the likes of father and son Scyllias and Calisto (Callan Mulvey and Jack O’Connell).
The 2006 movie 300 was based on the comic book by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley which was in turn based on the Battle of Thermopylae. The movie was simply a stunning mix of action, history epic and fantasy that became a pop culture phenomenon. It was also responsible for many slow-motion action sequences that became the vogue in its wake. 300: Rise of An Empire is based on the as-yet-unpublished graphic novel by Miller on the Battle of Salamis that took placein 480BC.
The film’s ‘fresh’ aspect has been lost
Fans of the first movie should lap this one up voraciously. Director Noam Murro follows the footsteps of Zack Snyder’s directing style, perfectly emulating the visual strength, epic feel and intermingling of action and fantasy of 300. The only difference here is that the film’s ‘fresh’ aspect has been lost.
However, the sequel has two novelties: it is now set on the high seas, as the Battle of Salamis was a naval battle of epic proportions. The second is the addition of Eva Green as the character of Artemisia, one of the few female naval commanders in history. She simply dominates the screen and truly lives up to the words that Xerxes is said to have uttered about her: “O Zeus, surely you have formed women out of man’s materials, and men out of woman’s.”
The film goes all out to be epic and manages to do it without having such a long duration. Like the original movie, Simon Duggan’s cinematography glorifies the over-the-top battles, the heroic characters, the slow-motion blood splatter and even the sex.
Propelled along by Lena Heady’s strong narration, the audience once again should get truly immersed in the proceedings and the era.
The visuals win over the storytelling aspect which is liberal in its depiction of history, very much in the same manner as the first 300.