Review of 300: Rise of an Empire (2014) by Skulb — 15 Apr 2014

Not the worst movie I`ve seen. Visually I liked it, although I understand the criticism of it. It really is more like a series of paintings than a conventional movie; seeking to capture the style of the comic book from which the story originates. As with the original 300 most of the historical anecdotes from Herodotus are there, sort of, with a lot of Miller`s creative twists added in. Nothing is historically accurate per say, but then not too many things are entirely made up either, with the notable exception of the Spartans appearing at Salamis rather than Plataiai. Perhaps I should rephrase and say that not too many narrative elements are made up, while a lot of the more...decorative stuff is made up entirely and above all hilariously. Including transvestite 8 foot tall Xerxes making a pact with an evil god, Immortals filing their teeth and all the rest of it. Personally I don`t think it was quite as imaginative in this regard as the first movie. At least there weren`t obese executioners with meat cleaver prosthetics for hands in Rise of an Empire.

However, the story manages to be weaker than in 300 and I was sort of waiting for it to end and leave me alone for the last 30 minutes or so. It`s not that it`s exactly boring, but it just seems to disappear into the visual effects somewhat and abandons the actual historical intrigue it could have drawn on as much as any contrived romantic intrigue it seemed to be considering. Themistokles is stiffly portrayed and so is I think his counterpart Artemisia. They are restricted to inspirational huddle-speeches and incomprehensible behavior respectively. I think it`s fair to say that while Themistokles may very well have been this dull, Artemisia was not borderline psychotic in real life.

The acting is in fact fairly embarrassing all round, as is the caricature of the Persian degenerates vs the noble Athenians. In its defense one might present that this was more or less how the Greeks saw themselves at the time, being massive chauvinists after all. And while I`m sure Xerxes had a few black and brown people in his army - after all he was ruling the Middle East as far as the Indus - I seem to recall something about the Persians being Indo-European, and therefore presumably white themselves. Some of the inventions and visual schemes are Miller`s and can`t therefore be blamed on Murro. But Miller didn`t make the Persians black or brown as I recall, so this is entirely on the director.

Whether it`s crude, racist propaganda designed to glorify the USA -which in my mind has very little in common with ancient Greece in any way, - or just a goofy attempt at displaying the cultural division the Greeks undoubtedly felt, I`m not sure. But considering the base level of US propaganda against Iran these days perhaps it might at least be advisable not to have Persian suicide bombers in movies about the Persian Wars.

As for oppressed women and slaves this was just how all societies were at this time, and for all this the Greeks did in fact invent the modern, civilized notion of political freedom and popular rule. Obviously it had to start somewhere and as it happens it started with free men and didn`t really expand beyond this for about 2400 years after the Persian Wars. But I must say that people who belittle ancient Greece because of these restrictions are ignorant to the point of imbecility. And this concludes my rant against political correctness...

All in all it might be worth watching this for the visuals if nothing else, unless you absolutely hated the original movie. If you liked the original then chances are you`ll like this one. I still think it falls a bit short though. When you know the source material here, and are at least somewhat aware of the particulars of the Persian Wars, then you also know how much is left out which would have made the movie a lot better. Classical Greece was born as much in the mud at Plataiai as at Salamis yet it`s not even in the movie. And neither is Pausanias who was the other leader of the Greek victory after the death of Leonidas. Instead the Spartans come sailing, led by a woman! And thousands of dead Spartans turn over in their graves....