300: Rise of an Empire Movie Review

300: Rise of an Empire

                                                  

300: Rise of an Empire is an action drama fantasy movie released in March, 2014. As anyone can guess, this is the sequel of the epic film ‘300’. It is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel Xerxes. 300: Rise of an Empire is written by Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Frank Miller and directed by Noam Murro. The major characters of this film are played by Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, Hans Matheson, David Wenham, David Wenham, Rodrigo Santoro, Jack O'Connell and Andrew Tiernan.

300: Rise of an Empire tells the story which happened before, during and after the story of its prequel 300 and the Greeks' attempts to stop the Persians from taking their homeland. 

 

Eva Green and Sullivan Stapleton in a scene of 300: Rise of an Empire

Plot:

The plot of 300: Rise of an Empire starts 10 years before the battle happened in 300. The Persians came to conquer Greece, but they got defeated by the superior tactics of Greek general Themistocles. In that battle, Themistocles kills the Persian king, who was the father of the next king, Xerxes. Xerxes comes back to his land and with the help of his father’s naval commander, Artemisia, gains his power and emerged as the ‘God King’. Artemisia was a cruel but extraordinary intelligent warrior and general of the navy, who had a shady past and was seeking her revenge on the Greeks.

10 years later, Xerxes is now again invading Greece. Themistocles manages to convince all the states of Greece to provide him ships, with which, he will stop the Persian army at the sea. He then goes to seek help from Sparta, where he learns that the Spartan king Leonidas is consulting the oracles. He comes back to his town. With the help of his friend who also works as a spy and infiltrates the Persian troops, Themistocles learns the nature of Artemisia.

Themistocles, with his troops and ships, comes face to face with Artemisia’s troops in the sea. For the first two attacks, Themistocles successfully stops the Persians from advancing and with his brilliant tactics, make the Persians retreat. The Persian army loses a good number of soldiers, where Themistocles loses only a few men.

Impressed with Themistocles’s intelligence, Artemisia invites him to her ship. She uses sex to convince him to join her team as her second-in-command. Themistocles refuses and he is sent back to the land without any harm. But he knows that Artemisia has become mad and next day they are going to face a very tough battle.

He was not wrong. On the next day, Artemisia uses her brute force and maximum of her powers to destroy the Greek ships. Both side faces heavy losses and believing that Themistocles has died, Artemisia retreats with her troops, where Themistocles is luckily saved.

On the land, Xerxes has already killed king Leonidas and has started to destroy Greek cities. Themistocles visits mourning queen Gorgo (king Leonidas’s wife) of Sparta and again asks for her assistance, where she again refuses. Before leaving, Themistocles hands her king Leonidas’s sword and asks her to avenge him.

Meanwhile, Artemisia learns that Themistocles is still alive and is again preparing for a battle. She starts for that battle without her king Xerxes’s consent. They have a little argument between them.

Themistocles’s soldiers are depressed by their loss and the refusal of their call of assistance by the Spartans. But as a perfect leader, Themistocles inspires them to fight and take their revenge. He also makes some special arrangement for himself in his ship to use on the battle. So, with his troops, he comes face to face again with Artemisia.

Sullivan Stapleton in 300: Rise of an Empire 

My review about the movie 300: Rise of an Empire:

I liked this movie, but not as much as its prequel, 300. If you are a big fan of 300, this one may even disappoint you.

The plot of 300: Rise of an Empire was good. But if you are interested to learn about what happened after 300 ends, here is the first disappointment. This one also ends without giving an exact result of the war between the Persians and the Greeks. Just like its prequel, 300: Rise of an Empire ends within the war without telling us the fate about the Greeks.

The cinematography of 300: Rise of an Empire was also good, but not as good as 300. The use of fantasy was also less, we didn’t see much of the gigantic creatures or magic.

The acting of all the characters were good. Specially, Eva Green’s performance was outstanding. Her character was also so powerful and important that several times, it felt like she was the leading character of 300: Rise of an Empire. But none other characters were as charming as the characters of 300. Almost none of the charms of the character of king Leonidas were here at the character of the hero Themistocles. His character was also not as strong as that of king Leonidas of 300. Even king Xerxes’s and queen Gorgo’s character in 300: Rise of an Empire did not seem as powerful as we saw in the prequel.

But what I missed most in 300: Rise of an Empire was the epic dialogues from 300. Although the dialogues were good, but they were nowhere near the epicness of the dialogues of 300. I really missed something like “Tonight we dine in hell”, “Madness? This is Sparta!”, “Give them nothing, but take from them everything”.

The use of special effects also seemed inferior in 300: Rise of an Empire than its sequel. Most of the special effects were limited to showing bloods in slow motion.

There are a few nude scenes in 300: Rise of an Empire. For those and other gore scenes, this is not a movie you can watch with kids.

I think if the director thought that the success of the movie 300 came only for its plot, acting and cinematography, but not for its characters and dialogues, then he has made a mistake. I loved the whole movie 300 for its art and everything from the beginning to the end seemed very artistic to me including the fighting, the gore scenes, the nude scenes and so on. But the sequel 300: Rise of an Empire lacked severely in the art.

But don't get me wrong, 300: Rise of an Empire is still a good movie, but it falls behind if you compare it with its prequel. If you are fan of 300, then you must watch 300: Rise of an Empire. Even if you feel a little disappointed, but you will not feel you time wasted by watching it.

Don't forget to visit the wikipedia link of 300: Rise of an Empire. You will find a lot of interesting historical facts about those wars by browsing the links given in the article.

So, how was your experience about 300: Rise of an Empire? Share with us in the comments.

To know more about 300: Rise of an Empire:

Wikipedia link : 300: Rise of an Empire Wiki
IMDB link :300: Rise of an Empire IMDB

To buy or rent this movie from Amazon, or to watch online, get the best deal on it here:  300: Rise of an Empire Movie