Film review: 300: Rise of an Empire
Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way quickly. 300: Rise of Empire is, as it was always expected to be, a barrage of style-over-substance nonsense. If you’re going into this film expecting anything else then you should probably rethink your choices. However, if you’re looking for a more than worthy follow-up to Zack Snyder’s 300 that impresses with stunning visuals and delightfully gory, impressively choreographed action, you’ll be satisfied. What’s more, this film has a more entertaining tone than its predecessor, swapping seriousness for silliness — it even has a couple of moments of self-aware humour.
Unlike 300, this film doesn’t even pretend to argue its message of fighting for freedom with any conviction whatsoever. The narrative is just what exists in between ridiculous fight scenes and it has been clear that is exactly what the film is supposed to be, so it would be overly critical to be disappointed at details like a lack of historical accuracy or a weak plot. The film is paced with a rhythm that essentially amounts to the delivery of a tiny bit of plot — only as little as you need to understand the context of the next battle scene — before an extended portion of action. Once the action’s over, the cycle repeats. Character beats are kept to a minimum, some even blatantly mirror arcs from the first film just to make sure that things don’t slow down.
The story follows Greek general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton), a man who dreams of a united Greece and will fight for his freedom and the freedom of those in his country. Interestingly, it isn’t a straight sequel to 300 because a significant amount of what is going on here is happening at the same time as the first film. At some point (maybe about halfway through or just after that point), the news of the 300 Spartans’ fate is relayed to the Greek navy and they react with a generally apathetic shrug as they acknowledge how unlikely it was that so few could stand up to the Persians anyway.
While Stapleton is technically the lead, he and his character are really so bland that they don’t matter all that much. Rise of an Empire does have a stronger lead than the first film, though, although it’s Eva Green, rather than Stapleton. As the villainous Artemisia, Green is just terrific. She exudes menace and severity while giving an intense performance that is simply the best thing about this sequel. She’s so good that you’ll end up rooting for the massive Persian navy to beat the Greeks. She even has a better backstory than the lead character, and it makes her sympathetic and compelling in a way that no man on this cast is able to be.
Indeed, the second most interesting character here is Lena Heady’s Queen Gorgo, playing the type of revenge subplot that would usually be handed to a male character. She doesn’t get to be in as much of the movie as I would’ve liked but she’s still badass when she is onscreen and her presence really makes this sequel much more worthwhile. Jack O’Connell also turns a thankless role that could’ve easily been forgettable (it’s already stuffed full of clichés) into something impressive. His energetic portrayal of young Greek warrior Calisto makes for a character whose name you’ll remember (seriously, there aren’t many here) and someone who always moves in exciting ways during combat.
And I suppose the fighting is what we should talk about most, as it’s easily Rise of an Empire’s most appealing feature. The choreography is constantly impressive, although sometimes a little too much so. There needs to be more of a rhythm to the fighting, so that the most eye-opening moments stand out from the more familiar ones. This film is essentially all crazy moves and there’s such a weight of cool action that it becomes more difficult to isolate the most amazing pieces of stunt work, or the most imaginatively filmed moments. There are some really notable ones, though, especially in the very first onscreen battle.
It’s that conflict, a frenetically delivered beach-set fight between Greeks and a landing Persian force, that is probably the film’s most thrilling set piece. It’s not quite as darkly presented as some others and the action on land tends to be better than that on the seas. The naval strategising is frequently difficult to convey visually, with initial scenes working much more convincingly than those later on (the film’s colour palette also gets darker and rainier as it goes, intentionally making it more difficult to understand what’s happening). That’s not to say there aren’t great pieces of action in the final third, though. Among others, there’s a breathless sword fight between Artemisia and Themistokles that makes for a really exciting watch.
I like that the film isn’t as serious as 300. There comes a point in the first film where it all feels like it’s trying a bit too hard. Rise of an Empire has a better understanding of what sort of film it is, and it even throws in some humour (like one great moment in the middle of a highly improbably sex scene that shows director Noam Murro is in on the silliness of it all) to keep the audience entertained while they wait for the next fight scene. The visuals are also gorgeous, attaining a convincing “comic book” feel and conveying the atmosphere effectively. There are numerous individual episodes of Spartacus that do a far better job delivering the sort of thematic material this could’ve attempted to go for, but that’s not what 300: Rise of an Empire is about at all. It wants to be a silly, fun action flick that is noisy and looks stylised. It succeeds. And, thanks to Eva Green, it’s a surprisingly enjoyable film.
300: Rise of an Empire is in cinemas now
