K-SCORE: 34
Director: Noam Murro
Writers: Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad
Starring: Eva Green, Sullivan Stapleton, Lena Headey
Costume Designer: Christine Bieselin Clark, Alexandra Byrne
Spoiler Level: Moderate
“that the three-hundred figure at the beginning of the title no longer refers to anything at all”
300 is not a particularly sophisticated film, but it does better than 300: Rise of an Empire which tries to take the style of the first one and forcibly remove any semblance of intelligent plotting and the loose historical basis. Even worse is that the three-hundred figure at the beginning of the title no longer refers to anything at all. So that epicness of just a few tough guys fending off a whole lot of evil Persians is entirely gone. Those issues were ones I anticipated, and though the film confirmed my initial suspicious, it’s failures are far more numerous.
“The ocean looks barely better than what Blizzard renders in World of Warcraft”
The not-so-inspirational speeches really weigh the film down, getting in the way of the battles. The CGI blood looks really bad. The slow-motion shots have reverted to the usual Hollywood style of needlessly exaggerating an action set piece, whereas in the original they were almost there just to create a weird rhythm to the Spartans’ combat. Nothing special can be found in the choreography of the fights anyway, and given the disorderly nature of the plot, you never know who is fighting whom and why. The story is a shambling mess, taking place before, during, and after the events of the first film. Characterization is so weak that only Eva Green sticks out in your head once the credits roll. They repeatedly shout their names at each other during the fights, and somehow I still couldn’t remember them. Some actors have American accents, some British, all of which hampers the suspension of disbelief given that you’re dealing with ancient Greece. But it doesn’t matter. The absolutely worst attribute of the film is the fact that the entire thing was shot in a studio in front of green screens. The entirely CGI settings fail to realistically recreate the outdoors. The ocean looks barely better than what Blizzard renders in World of Warcraft these days, and the sky looks painted over their cheap wooden ship sets. It’s so lazy.
The only saving grace for 300: Rise of an Empire comes from the hands of the costume designers. Their concept for the evil Persian commander woman is so good it’s a travesty she doesn’t win the day, and even more of a travesty that she doesn’t utilizing some of the weapons she’s wearing to kill some chumps aboard those rickety ships. We’re talking nipples on breastplates, dresses that expose 95% of the legs that are worn into battle, a tunic that I think is woven from human hair, and, the obvious favorite, a piece armor that has bony spikes along the spine. If you can’t find anything to like in that, well, maybe you’ll enjoy the scene where she takes her costume off.
