300: Rise of an Empire

Steve Mookie Kong | | 2-minute read

Slow motion. Gore. More gore. Moar thick gelatinous blood flying at the 3D movie watching audience! Eva Green chopping off heads. Slow motion. More slow motion! Abs, lots of abs. Speeches, many speeches. Slow motion. Fighting. Gore. Gore. Blood, there must be more blood! Speeches. Slow motion. Long gazes. Stares. Gaze more. Slow motion. Gore. Yelling. Macho screaming. Gore. Slow motion.

Had enough? That’s about what 300: Rise of an Empire is. Rinse and repeat. This movie is a soulless display of computer generated comic book panels. Violence and gore disguised as cool via action sequences so repetitive that they are boring.

Sullivan Stapleton is no Gerard Butler. He has none of the screen presence or charisma of Butler. He does not even get a great line to scream like, “This is Sparta!” It also doesn’t help that he doesn’t get much to work with and his character is bland. Eva Green chews her way through each scene as a goth-punk Greek Persian who has costume changes in the middle of battles. She is the most memorable character in this movie full of forgettable heros. Although, who can forget Rodrigo Santoro’s golden seemingly S&M inspired Xerxes?

Helmets, check. Shields, check. Swords, check. Body armor, we don’t need it! We are macho men and we will let our rock hard abs protect us! Even when walking around town, apparently Greeks did not wear shirts. Capes? Yes. Shirts No.

Do we have to have every frame of the film filled with particle effects? From burning embers to dust particles the size of popcorn. All of the computer generated particles are a distraction – sometimes the particles flew one way, but in the next cut, they were flying the other way.

By the time the third act starts and the faux rousing rallying speech is exclaimed by Themistokles, I was ready for the film to end. Boredom had set in,but I knew there was more gore, slow motion, blood, yelling and slow motion to come.

The CGI horse sequence was laughably bad, as was the final “boss battle”.

300: Rise of an Empire is a sequel that was not necessary. This is not a good film and since it takes itself so seriously, it’s not a film that is even fun to watch. Skip 300: Rise of an Empire.