Disc Reviews

300: Rise Of An Empire Review

27th Sep 2014

OK, I admit it. I genuinely thought this would be good fun. I thought this would probably equal Zach Snyder’s 300 (2006). I thought it would be a riot quite frankly. Sadly this just wasn’t the case.

Like many I was first introduced to Frank Miller’s work via Batman: The Dark Knight Returns during the late 1980s followed by ‘Sin City’ and ‘300’ in the 1990s. It’s safe to say I was a massive fan and when rumours surfaced of a 300 movie (2006) directed by Zach Snyder who had previously given us a very competent remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004) I was chomping at the bit – even more so after witnessing what Miller’s work looked like when translated to the big screen after the Robert Rodriguez/Miller Sin City movie arrived the year before. However this isn’t to say that Snyder and Miller are infallible. After Dawn of the Dead, 300 and Watchmen (one of my most favourite remakes and two of my favourite comic book adaptations to date) Snyder dropped a steaming turd on us called Sucker Punch (2011). Likewise after holding on to his intellectual property tighter than a snare trap for several years before Rodriguez did it justice, Miller went it alone in the director’s seat and stole 108 minutes of our lives with The Spirit (2008). But of course 300: Rise of an Empire wasn’t directed by Zach Snyder, he takes the producers chair sure and is credited for the screenplay. He seemingly didn’t learn anything from Sucker Punch. Snyder, some of you are born to direct and some (others) are born to write. Stick to your strengths mate! As for Miller, aside from this farce being based upon his graphic novel ‘Xerxes’ he had no involvement here. Presumably he was busy with A Dame to Kill For.

So what do we have here? A movie that tells the story either side of the events of the battle of Thermopylae as depicted in 300 that is nowhere near as exciting: A discount Leonidas, Themistocles – played by Sullivan Stapleton with about as much conviction as a large sheet of green cloth – attempts to unite Greece and go to war against the Persian army led by a Greek orphan named Artemisia (Eva Green). That’s right. NOT Xerxes. The first quarter the movie desperately tries to prove its relevance to the story that we all wish we were watching by teasing us with scenes of Spartans slaughtering Persians and endless voiceover narration describing events shown in the first film.

There’s plenty of dazzling green screen effects and the same slow motion combat from the first movie with all the dials turned up to 11. Blood and limbs gloriously spraying everywhere and it does certainly look fantastic but sadly this isn’t enough to save it from its dreadful, meandering plot. The heroes are simply not as heroic as the Spartans in 300, here we are rooting for the Athenians – the same lot described by Leonidas in the first movie as ‘philosophers and boy-lovers’ so it’s quite difficult to watch without chuckling in the back of your mind. And the villains pale in comparison to the various beasts and elite warriors we saw in 300. And then there’s Artemisia (Green) being all ‘seductress’ with Themistocles in her cabin instead of just killing the sorry bastard just so we can have the requisite ‘Eva Green tit shot’. The film seemingly only shines when Xerxes appears in a couple of cameos. My favourite scene – and Artemisia line for that matter – involves Xerxes striking her for insolence which is followed by the two best lines in the movie which I will gladly spoil for you:

“Do not forget who put the crown on your childish head. Now sit on your golden throne and watch this battle from the safety I provide you”

In case I haven’t already made it clear just how strongly I feel about this movie, once it ended I immediately put on 300 to remove the bad taste and once I had finished 300 I sat down to write this review and I struggled to remember what had even happened in it. Definitely not a recommendation.