300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE MOVIE REVIEW

– ★★★1/2

(Warning: Spoilers ahead)

The bar is set high for sequel films especially onto the successful ones because everyone is expecting more from it. And in times like these; sequels or franchises are a trend. One can be seen from Marvel which gave the success on not only creating sequels but creating an entire universe as a whole.

Sequels or prequels tend to give excitement to people especially upon hearing from its public announcement, and when Warner Bros. decided to impart that information last year, I was excited.

The first film, 300, was visually entertaining, taking a whole new level of filmmaking. Although, the movie Sin City has the same kind of visual approach about filming in green screen and emphasis on the blood splatting; Zack Snyder took it up the notch. The whole film felt like a High Dynamic Range (HDR) shot that Digital Camera’s give, and the slow-motion capture says it all.

The storyline tells the 2^nd war between the Greeks and Persians, and how did that came to be by iterating the account of the 1^st Greco-Persian War by Lionidas’ wife, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), making the movie a prequel-sequel alike.

It narrates how the God-King Xerxes wanted his vengeance from the Greeks because of Themistocles’ (Sullivan Stapleton) honest mistake upon demising his father and having the gut that Xerxes would one day be a threat, but ignoring that intuition of his.

Also, the Persian Naval commander Artemisia’s (Eva Green) story of her original Grecian roots showed how ruthless Greeks were to her and her family that made her lustful for revenge.

The Story

The movie is based on an unpublished novel by Frank Miller, who also did the original 300, that depicts the epic war story of the 1^st and 2^nd Greco-Persian war. The story of the 2^nd movie is interrelated to the original 300 and a proceeding account reaching to an end.

300: Rise of an Empire’s story is much crispier than the original. There are more battles than the first, and it was interesting, seeing rivals strategize to win.

The depth of the emotion was already set from the first movie (thanks to it), and now a threat is far more revealing and invigorating.

I love the fact that my eyes and ears were totally onto the movie, making me keen to every details there are, and having the feeling that you don’t want to miss something, most especially the mot juste which is a 300 trademark, (e.g. ‘THIS IS SPARTA!’) that creates more tension in the film, and this time it’s ‘SEIZE YOUR GLORY’.

Screenplay

The best thing about 300 movies is that the graphics are very well defined and the scenes are captivating. The slow-motion takes place and it’s a numerous positive things to it. Although I sense that I guess if you’ll add all the slow-motion scenes, it kind of adds to the time frame of the movie which makes it reasonably long. But, it’s proprietary and needed for the justification of the film though.

Besides the long slow-motion scenes are the muscles and abs which are the proprietary of all.

Just kidding.

OVERALL

300: Rise of an Empire is the sequel that is properly well executed. The sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire is again visually stunning, wickedly entertaining.

300: Rise of an Empire is an American film, sequel to 300, directed by Noam Murro, produced by Zack Snyder (Man of Steel, 300) and starred by Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, and Lena Headey. The film was released on March 7, 2014.