300: Rise of an Empire

****
Release Date: March 7th 2014

Greek general Themistocles leads the charge against invading Persian forces led by mortal-turned-god Xerxes and Artemisia, vengeful commander of the Persian navy.

Director: Noam Murro

Starring: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, Rodrigo Santoro 

You can tell after the first 5 minutes that a big presence is missing. Don't get me wrong, Sullivan Stapleton, who plays general Themistocles, does a grand job in a lead role, but coming off the back of Gerard Butler's (as mighty as he was) is a hard thing to do.

It was a big wonder whether ROAE was going to be a prequel or a sequel. It is neither. Film critics dub it a parallequel. Lena Headey's Queen Gorgo (who's in the first one), is our voiceover this time, telling us the tale of Themistocles and his battle against the Persian fleet (this coincides with Leonidas' battle). Persian general Artemisia (Eva Green) stands in his way. God-king Xerxes' history is told, so is Artemisia's. We finally know why Xerxes has such hate for the Greeks.

The overall template used in 300 has been copied and pasted. Although the scenery is just as coarse and smooth as the first installment, it never cements new ideas. 3D cinema didn't exist when 300 was released. Adding it to Rise of an Empire means the blood, guts and gore are full-frontal. Blood spatters everywhere and limbs fly off never to be seen again. 

Rise of an Empire only furthers the aspect of the few against the many. There's not so few as three hundred this time round, but it's not for the lack of trying to amass the numbers. Themistocles approaches Queen Gorgo to see if the Spartans will fight as one with the other Greek nations. As you can tell this doesn't work in his favour.  

So we are left with the Athenian general and his band of Greeks, who feel somewhat like the leftover substitutes compared to the Spartans we're used to seeing. And try as they might, Themistocles and co. are cracking fighters. 'You fight much harder than you fuck' mocks Artemisia. An over-the-top scene with Themistocles riding a horse along the fleet is not just insane but fun to watch.

Overview: ROAE ends with a third likely to happen. If it's goes by the history, then there's still some wrapping up to do. You're likely to enjoy this if you loved the first.