Review: 300: Rise of an Empire

Last 2006, Frank Miller's well renowned graphic novel entitled 300 made it's way onto the big screen. In the said film, Zack Snyder directed the visual retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, in short, that film has one of the best action choreography in recent years and what is probably one of the most visually striking movie made in the modern era. In 2012, a sequel was announced for '300' but this time with Snyder taking on the back seat and letting Noam Murro helm the film. So, is the sequel better or worse than it's predecessor? Find out my thoughts on the jump.

Synopsis:
Based on Frank Miller's latest graphic novel Xerxes and told in the breathtaking visual style of the blockbuster "300," this new chapter of the epic saga takes the action to a fresh battlefield-on the sea-as Greek general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) attempts to unite all of Greece by leading the charge that will change the course of the war. "300: Rise of an Empire" pits Themistokles against the massive invading Persian forces led by mortal-turned-god Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), and Artemisia (Eva Green), vengeful commander of the Persian navy. (c) WB

'300: Rise of an Empire' is best described as a companion piece to the original film. Why? It's because the structure of the film is quite different unlike most sequels today. In this one, it shows the events before the Persian empire declared war with Greece. The great thing about this part of the movie is that it gives off more time for the characters to have development and to have backstory like how Xerxes became the god king that he is in the evens of '300' and how the villain of this film (Artemisia) became who she is. 

Then after showing off the earlier events of the film, it then proceeded on what happened during the Battle of Thermopylae, I liked this aspect in the movie too because we get to see the other struggles of Greece and not just the Spartans. You get to see more involvement from each of these empires, and how the politics worked between these empires (granted though that less politics was shown in this film). Lastly, it then showed the aftermath of the Battle of Thermopylae, now this is where the two films come in full circle because this is where the action finally started to kick up a notch, and you get to see how these Greek warriors would deal with the said aftermath and in my opinion, it was glorious to see.

This is the strongest feat of the story is to me, the structure, however, the execution of the story as a whole is only okay because while some parts of the story felt a bit stale and felt a bit cliched at times but the positive light on this though is that the story didn't over-complicate itself with head scratching plot twists.

If there's one thing that I missed from the first film, it's got to be Gerard Butler. While the new lead character Themistocles was a good follow-up to Butler's Leonidas, Stapleton's performance was missing something and that is charisma. In all honesty, the guy has a weak charisma and it's a bit unrealistic to believe that this is the guy that is leading an army but what he lacked charisma more than makes up for it when he is displayed in action scenes. There's one thing that I liked about this character though, and that is how different it is from Leonidas. Leonidas is like this proud warrior who puts muscle over mind but Themistocles is a critical and technical warrior who mostly thinks of what his next tragedy to be in bringing down the enemy. This small move between the character made them feel very different from one another and made the actors role feel more unique in their take on the characters they are playing.

Eva Green is tasked on to portray the film's villain whose name is Artemisia, and to me, Green is the best thing this movie has to offer (aside from it's visual effects and action). She was everything you would want for a villain, she was cunning, she was twisted and most of all, she can handle her own in fight scenes. I really like this character not because of these characteristics but because of how Green played the character, and I honestly cannot think of other actress who can portray the character better than her. Also the chemistry between her and Themistocles was so strong that you can really feel the sexual tension between them even though they are mortal enemies. I also like the inclusion of her backstory in the film because you get to see how this character came to be and what struggles she need to overcome and to see how she transitioned to be this sick and brutal commander.

Coming back from the first film is Lena Headey as Queen Gorgo and Rodrigo Santoro as Xerxes. Lena Headey is still great as Gorgo, this time around though, we get to see more of her character and what's best is that we get to see her character show grief after the loss of his king and husband. Also she gets to kick ass in this movie and that got me all giddy. Santoro as Xerxes is probably one of the most over-the-top characters ever made but props to Santoro for making it look like the character is so much fun. We get to see more him before he became a god king, we get to see why he chose to be this entity. Unlike Headey's character though, it still feel like Xerxes was still underused in this film because he's just this character who just looms in the background and not even get up from his chair to lift the sword and fight some Greeks. Seems like a whole lot of work for Xerxes.

The director of this picture is Noam Murro but you can definitely see the major influence of Zack Snyder in this film. I was glad that they were able to retain the original "look" and "feel" of the first '300' film, from the action down to the shots and visual effects, it's pretty much the same which is a good thing because if they departed too much from it, it'll feel a whole lot different and may be a bit strange to call it a prequel/sequel to '300'. 

In addition, Murro did such a great job in directing these unknown actors and make them show decent performances. Also props to Murro for giving little nods to the original film and also by not holding back in showing brutal fight scenes and using VFX in it's utmost capacity.

Overall:

Even though '300: Rise of an Empire is an unnecessary sequel, it was still able to capture the original tone of the first film but with more bloods and guts and to top that off with outstanding VFX, a great performance by Eva Green and a story structure that feels like both film could accompany one other and made the whole story of each be much more rounded. This film was very entertaining and a definite good time at the movies.

Grade:

Favorite lines:

Themistocles: Better we show them, we chose to die on our feet, rather than live on our knees!

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Xerxes: Nothing will stop the march of my empire!

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Artemisia: Steel and flesh... life and death... war.

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Themistocles: Seize your glory!
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