From a box-office perspective, Zack Snyder's 2007 film 300 was a remarkable achievement; it took a story known only to history buffs and specialty comic book geeks and turned it into a nearly $500 million grossing worldwide phenomenon. It was a cultural milestone of sorts, especially considering it opened up quite a bit of discussion on what really happened back then. Iranian-Americans decried the way it depicted the Persian empire, and a lot of other people decried the underlying sexism, homophobia, videogame-inspired violence, borderline endorsement of fascism and, many other things besides. For better or worse, though, there is no denying that this film made waves when it came out.
One wonders, therefore why it took so long for the sequel, which, as I understand it, was greenlit quite sometime ago, to come out. Considering the relatively cheap price tag of the first one and the return on investment, a sequel (or parallel piece, as this one turns out to be) was a sound business decision. The CGI could be done on the cheap because the main goal is to be stylized, not realistic, and there was absolutely no need for popular stars.
In that respect, 300: Rise of An Empire, helmed by first-time feature director Noam Murro (with Snyder writing and producing this time), very much follows the formula of the first film. The first film basically dramatized (read: butchered) the historical battle of Thermopylae, while this film similarly "remixes" historical events, stringing together the battle of Marathon, which sets the stage for the events that take place in the film and, indeed, even the first film, and the battle of Salamis. The first film took then little-known Scottish actor Gerard Butler and made him a household name as the Spartan warrior-king Leonidas, while this one has little-known Australian actor Sullivan Stapleton playing the lead character, the Athenian naval commander Themistokles. All of this takes place against a bronzed, computer-generated backdrop of the ancient kingdoms of Greece.
The difference between the two movies, however, is this film's redeeming quality, and it is in the adversaries that the two fictionalized Greeks face, almost simultaneously, albeit on different battlefields. This place takes place primarily on the Aegean Sea, or at least a computer-generated version of it.
In the first film, King Leonidas squared off against the "god king" Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) who returns in this film. The difference, though, is that he is revealed as weak and incapable and that his whole "god-king" image is basically hype. In fact, this film reveals the force actually driving him: Artemisia (Eva Green), the most trusted general of Xerxes' late father Darius. In fact, it is revealed that it was actually Artemisia who, upon instigating Xerxes' transformation from awkward man-child to oversized golden idol, actually goaded him into declaring war on all of Greece and Athens especially because she has an ax to grind with the Greeks that is revealed early on in the film. It is she whom Themistokles must defeat, which is no easy task.
Now, I'm willing to wager that Eva Green's Artemisia is a far cry from whoever her historical counterpart actually was. I'm certain she didn't dress in bondage gear with spikes protruding from her back, or fight with two swords using what looks like Filipino martial arts or even look like Eva Green. Truth be told, I couldn't really care less about any of that because I found Green to be absolutely amazing. Sullivan Stapleton delivered a largely anonymous performance as Themistokles, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if his resume consisted mostly direct-to-video fodder after this film, but Green's screen presence as Artemisia was so overpowering that she was to this film what Butler, with his throaty bellowing of "SPARTA!" was to the first one. I'd seen her before in Casino Royale and, before that in Kingdom of Heaven, but to my mind this is the performance for which she will really be remembered. I'm only sorry that the local distributor, to secure a milder rating from the classification board, saw fit to chop out some of her, um, assets in a scene in which Artemisia seduces Themistokles. Still, inner pervert aside, Green made this film work for me.
Without her, the movie is largely a retread of the racist, right-wing orgy of violence that the first one was, only this time with a leading man absolutely devoid of charisma. The battle sequences, though sometimes muddled, are nonetheless impressively staged, but there really isn't that much that makes this movie stand out, especially considering how often the slow-down/ramp-up action of 300 has been copied in the seven years that have passed between these two films.
Green really makes the difference here; this film certainly isn't the celebration of female empowerment that films like Frozen or The Hunger Games were, but to my mind she turns in a performance that deserves to be remembered as one of the best ever from a woman starring in an action movie.
3/5 (Two of which belong to Green)
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