300: Rise of an Empire

It's hard to believe that 300 was released upon us in March of 2007, a whopping seven years ago. The movie was met with a healthy box office turnout as well as decent accolades - in my circle, at the least. It was difficult NOT to enjoy the film, as we were blasted from start to finish with visual splendor in the form of gratuitous blood, violence, slow motion, over the top dialogue and of course, impossibly muscular men. Zack Snyder seems to revel in his ability to bring comic book pages to life, allowing us to enjoy Frank Miller's splash pages on the big screen.

Where did we leave off? I believe the basic plot and straightforward execution thereof made 300 an enjoyable film and one that was easy to revisit. So before going to see the prequel/sequel, I watched it again and can conclude that it wasn't necessary to the understanding of this new creation. The first (what felt like) ten minutes of 300: Rise of an Empire felt like a "last seen on" intro to your favourite television show, and reduced the previous movie to a summary of actions and plot points that makes one wonder why we don't watch entire films in compressed form. We get to find out what happened to our King Leonidas immediately after his sacrifice, then quickly do we scrub back ten years to find out why Xerxes went on his rampage to begin with. And with that, we're introduced to our protagonist Themistocles and his counterpart Artemisia, played with perfect villainy by Eva Green.

What follows is another hour of action, violence, death, sex and slow motion (although not as much as its predecessor). We get a lot more talking though, as we gain an exposition on the war from both fronts and how everyone is involved, including multiple trips back to Sparta in an attempt to have them join the Athenian army in the rest of the fight. Of course, we know they do, as the ending of the original 300 depicted (I believe) the final battle that saw the end of Xerxe's advances.

I honestly thought we were going to see a rehash of the original, but was pleasantly met with something new. The setting is completely different, and while the movie was shot entirely on sound stage with extensive blue and green screen, it had a different look. Indeed, we find out that the men aren't as muscular (only Spartans can get that big it seems) but significantly less of the infamous "black crush" was used. Where 300 was red, Rise of an Empire is blue. Where 300 seemed outlandish, Rise of an Empire feels more rooted in history, and when you have a look, you can see that many of the characters actually existed and the story is more true to itself than you would let yourself believe a stylistic action movie could be. But both movies take liberties where they need to: both Snyder and Miller admit that they bent the truth to make the best scene, and I'm sure this philosophy was brought forward here as well.

It's still March though and we're surviving our way through the winter that never wants to end. Rise of an Empire gives us an escape - albeit a short one, but still an important one. While it may fall a bit short of the original - if not for anything else than the innovation at the time - Rise of an Empire is still a fantastic voyage.