I was sent an email yesterday from Warner Brothers because I attended the advanced screening of Man of Steel back in June of 2013. There was a link in there for a free advanced screening of the upcoming movie 300: Rise of an Empire, so I, being the movie buff that I am, jumped at the chance to see it. I absolutely loved its predecessor, 300, which remains one of my favorite action movies of all time. I'm sure that you can imagine that seeing the Spartans avenge King Leonidas and the 300 warriors who fell at the Battle of Thermopylae was something that I was very willing to watch. Unfortunately that's not what I got to see. I did like the movie overall and a repeat viewing will probably help my opinion it, but 300 set a ridiculously high bar that 300: Rise of an Empire didn't have a chance in Tartarus of being able to live up to.
When my friend Nick and I arrived at the theater a full hour and ten minutes before the screening was supposed to start, the line was already back out into the lobby. The movie was being shown in one of Cinemark Merriam's largest theaters, so I wasn't too worried that we wouldn't make the cut. Once they started letting people in we got to see exactly how long the line was. It went all the way down the hall, turned the corner, went to the back of that hall, then all the way back to where we started. I honestly had not seen this many people for a screening since Man of Steel. When we got our seats, amazingly not in the front row, I went back out to get a drink and the line was still all the way back to where Nick and I started. They ended up sending a lot of people home.
Before I get to the actual movie review, there are a few things I want to quickly mention:
- Warner Brothers is like Dreamworks and realizes that if they want people to go to social media about their movie, then they need to let them take their cell phones into the theater. Bravo WB!
- I actually saw the studio reps enforce the rated "R" policy and they kicked out four kids who had sat behind us without parental supervision. When the kids protested and tried lying their way out of it, the man actually said, "Point out your parents or get up and leave. This is not up for debate." Bravo again WB!
- If you have a child that is under 10... DO NOT BRING THEM TO A RATED "R" SEQUEL TO A MOVIE THAT WAS ULTRA-VIOLENT! More on that a little later.
**Minor Spoiler Alert**
300: Rise of an Empire opens with a quick reference to the first movie, then goes into what felt like a twenty minute origin story for how Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) went from the weakling son of the last King of Persia to the God-King that was so feared throughout the known world. I honestly couldn't have cared less where he came from and it took some of the mystery and awe behind this ominous figure that we saw in 300. I was able to forgive that though, because we were introduced to the absolute best thing about this movie: An abused and scorned Greek woman who became a Persian warlord named Artimesia (Eva Green.) She is the main antagonist of the movie, (and Eva Green is my new Hollywood crush, but that's beside the point.) That's right, cinephiles... Xerxes is shoved to the sidelines for the remainder of the movie.
During the Xerxes origin sequence, we are also introduced to Leonidas-Light... um, I mean Themistokles (relative unknown Sullivan Stapleton.) Themistokles is the protagonist of all this and and we learn that he's the reason for the whole war in the first place. Xerxes' desire to rule all of Greece is all because Themistokles kills Xerxes father, King Darius, during a battle 10 years earlier. King Darius is the one who elevated Artimesia to his most trusted general and she in turn manipulates Xerxes into becoming the God-King and goads him into taking over the world. So yeah, Xerxes conquest of Greece is boiled down to revenge for the death of Artimesia's surrogate father.
One more thing: Themistokles isn't Spartan... he and his army is Athenian, from the same city as the ragtag group of sculptors and tradesmen that show up in the previous movie to help King Leonidas. For the remainder of the movie we are taken through events that are concurrent to 300 and then some events after its conclusion, all centered around the waterborne battles of Themistokles' hopelessly outnumbered navy against Artimesia's. Yes, this movie is a prequel, a parallel story... and a sequel, all-in-one!
Now, I bet you are sitting there asking, "OmegaManwicH, what about the characters that survived the first movie? What about the Spartans? I want to hear more about them!" Unfortunately, you are pretty much out of luck as this movie has very little to do with Sparta. Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) has the most screen time out of all of them... like maybe ten minutes. Dilios (David Wenham), the only Spartan survivor of the Battle of Thermopylae and the man Leonidas chose to send back to tell the tale, is reduced to a maybe four line cameo. You only see Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and Stilios (Michael Fassbender) in footage from the first movie. It's also apparent that they didn't want to pay Gerard Butler to actually cameo in the movie by his obvious absence from an early scene where Themistokles visits Sparta before the Battle of Thermopylae. It just "happens to be" when Leonidas was climbing the mountain to speak with the Oracle. Weak sauce, guys. There are other fleeting references to other minor characters from 300, but I'll let you discover those on your own.
Acting wise, Eva Green owns this entire movie. She's a woman that absolutely knows how to act with her eyes first and everything else just falls into place. If it wasn't for her, this movie would be very mediocre. Sullivan Stapleton did an okay job as Leonidas-light... wait, uh, I mean Themistokles (I keep doing that... I wonder why?) It was passable but nothing to write home about. Honestly, I think the deck was stacked against him. The "rousing" speeches that Themistokles gave just fell flat compared to the awesome presence of Gerard Butler's Leonidas. We were stuck watching Themistokles and his Athenians do their best Spartan impersonations, but basically they were a bunch of characters that no one in the audience cared about, save for maybe the son on one of his lieutenants. It was all a poor substitute for the Spartans' signature phalanx and battle cries. Also, just a note to the director, if you're trying to make the point that these are Athenians and not the Spartans, you have to do more than just point that out in the dialogue every 10 minutes. You have to show it, because honestly, these "non-soldiers" fought just as hard and skilled as the Spartans did in the first movie, just sans phalanx. That doesn't make any sense!
While I'm on the topic of the director. Noam Murro was trying his best to mimic the early directorial style of Zack Snyder, the arguable inventor of the slow-fast-slow film style. Synder has this down pat and I love seeing it when he does it. When Murro did it, it didn't really work. I don't know if he was holding the slow-mo too long, making it go to slow, or what, but something just felt... off.
While I'm on the topic of the director. Noam Murro was trying his best to mimic the early directorial style of Zack Snyder, the arguable inventor of the slow-fast-slow film style. Synder has this down pat and I love seeing it when he does it. When Murro did it, it didn't really work. I don't know if he was holding the slow-mo too long, making it go to slow, or what, but something just felt... off.
On top of the cloned fighting style and bad slo-fast camera, the amount of blood that splattered around and limbs that were cut off in the first movie were turned up to 11 in this one. It just felt overdone. Whenever they had someone spout a vulgar line, including Queen Gorgo, it just took you out of the story for not fitting with the speech and word style that the characters normally used... save for Artimesia's at the end. Hers was just funny.
Most everything about Rise of an Empire felt like they were either trying too hard... or not trying hard enough. While the early ship battles were entertaining to watch, the movie just. seemed... to... ... drag... ... ... on... ... ... ... That is until Themistokles and Artimesia finally meet up under a flag of truce, like many leaders do during war. Now if you've seen the trailer, this isn't a spoiler, but there's a sex scene there. That scene has more life and character development in it than the entire movie up to that point! It even seemed to inject life into the otherwise bored audience, (no pun intended.) From that point on, the movie finally became kinda fun to watch.
Most everything about Rise of an Empire felt like they were either trying too hard... or not trying hard enough. While the early ship battles were entertaining to watch, the movie just. seemed... to... ... drag... ... ... on... ... ... ... That is until Themistokles and Artimesia finally meet up under a flag of truce, like many leaders do during war. Now if you've seen the trailer, this isn't a spoiler, but there's a sex scene there. That scene has more life and character development in it than the entire movie up to that point! It even seemed to inject life into the otherwise bored audience, (no pun intended.) From that point on, the movie finally became kinda fun to watch.
I do have an aside here, though. Earlier I made the point that a child shouldn't be brought to a movie like this. The woman who was sitting next to me is who I'm talking about. Sitting next to her was her maybe 9-year-old son. The sex scene started up and there was gyration and grunting and moaning and all of that type of stuff... but when Eva Green's breasts were in full view, THAT'S when this woman tries to cover her kids eyes. Never mind the buckets of blood splattering everywhere, the on-screen violent deaths, the double-digit severed limbs or even the actual sex scene... "OMFG I have to protect my son from the evil naked tits!" Really, lady? Fail.
When I left the theater after seeing the first movie, I was so pumped that I wanted to scream out, "THIS! IS! SPARTA!" and punch a tree in half. I left this movie feeling letdown. All in all, I think that if 300: Rise of an Empire did not have to live in the shadow of 300 then I might have enjoyed the film more and potentially even given it a higher grade.
Unfortunately, 300 is a thing... a very good thing.
Unfortunately, 300 is a thing... a very good thing.
Final Grade - 6/10
300: Rise of an Empire will hit US theaters on March 7th, 2014
Until next time... are you not entertained?
#300movie
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