I FINALLY made it to the theatres! Its taken me a bit more than 2 months to get to a movie but I did! 🙂 I promise a few more coming up since I’m really determined to go see a few of the ones coming up.
My boyfriend and I are HUGE fans of 300. He loves it for the action, the patriotism, the Spartans, the blood and gore and the story and the beautiful cinematography. For me, other than chiselled men, I love the story and memorable quotes and just the honor and bravery behind the whole thing and of course, also the beautiful shots. I will save this for a full-on review but this is the main motivation to go see this one 🙂
Director: Noam Murro
Cast: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, Rodrigo Santoro, Callan Mulvey, David Wenham
Told through the view of Leonidas’ widow, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) after the events of 300, she tells the story of Themistokles, the Greek general who killed the Persian king, King Darius which enfuriates his son Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) who become a dark god through the manipulation of Artemisia (Eva Green) and lives to destroy Greece entirely. However, Artemisia’s anger stems even deeper despite her Greek blood and she leads the Persian navy to conquer Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) and his army.
Just a curious question before I start my little write-up. If you did go see 300: Rise of an Empire (or even before going to see it), how many of you expected a good movie? Personally, I didn’t have high hopes of its storyline. I was sure that the graphics and cinematography would probably compare to 300 and there would still be buff guys fighting, blood and gore and all that to look at. I went in completely blind. I didn’t even read up on what this one was about and only watched a teaser trailer months ago.
300 Rise of an Empire is not really a completely a sequel but regardless, it tries to tie itself to the original 300 story. In the end, 300 was more of a move that used their martyrdom to help Themistokles great plan of uniting the Greek cities. The story itself is not the best. Its attempt is not bad but definitely not as strong as 300 was. 300 was a tale of bravery and patriotism and honor all enveloped in one with memorable quotes and strong characters packed with lots of style and gore. Rise of an Empire hold that style and gore and the atmosphere they set, effects and whatnot are all the plus of this movie. The downside of it is in its characters and its story, both are not as strong. I’ll get to the characters in a little bit but for the story, it takes a while to take off in the beginning and honestly, within the first 30 minutes, I found myself almost falling asleep and desperately stuffing Fuzzy Peaches in my mouth to get a sugar rush to keep myself awake. However, it does get better gradually as the narration tapers off and we start getting actual dialogue and the story moves along.
Talking about the characters, the first one is Themistokles. I’m not saying the man is not good but he’s not Gerard Butler and not Leonidas. I think the best word to describe what he lacks is the charisma. Still, he deliver some good action. Moving on to Eva Green who plays the Persian naval commander, for most, I think she will be the attraction. She has an evilness but you’ll only see her in action at the very end making a lot of what she does just words, except when she has some aggressive sex with Themistokles and she shows off her breasts. Eva Green is a good looking woman and she takes over the villainous role and puts Xerxes in the backseat. My boyfriend didn’t quite like her role in it but I actually think it was effective enough. Those are the two leads that take up most of the movie and they aren’t quite as impressive as the original 300 cast but who am I kidding? Were we really here to get all deep and carefully plotted characters?
Before I go into a movie, I decide how I want to treat it. For me, I went in with the mindset I have of watching any bloody, gory action movie. Its for the entertainment of it. Its going to have great fight scenes, memorable dialogues, nice set up of events and just offers a great time. This one being a sequel also had to justify why this had to be made (other than just for racking in money because it can). For me, Rise of an Empire did that. It gave me reason enough to believe that this one was necessary and even reason enough for it to have another one. Plus, I was impressed with all the fights especially since now, they were all on the water. Its gives it a different feeling from the first one: new strategies, new skills and between both of these, it kept some actors for characters in the previous movie (even stronger link) and kept some nice scenes and effects. As much as I didn’t like the beginning narration by Queen Gorgo, however she was a much needed addition to connect to the first part.
I didn’t expect much and I’m well aware of the flaws this one has but when the credits started rolling, I knew that I had a good time. Nothing as great as 300 but I appreciated the effort. I think thats what matters. If you were a fan of the first one, I’d say you probably might end up enjoying this one as well 🙂
Have you seen 300 Rise of an Empire? What did you think of it? Did you think the story connected with the previous one in a good way
Tranquil Dreams 