300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

This is the 300th post on this blog. This blog had more posts on Wordpress. Back then I had posts telling which movie I will review next. I never counted those as real posts. I removed them when I changed my blog to here. So this is 300th real post on any version of this blog. That is why I chose to review 300: Rise of an Empire this time.

300: Rise of an Empire is sequel to 300 (2006). It happens before, during and after events of 300. It concentrates on battles of Artemisium and Salamis. It is based on unreleased graphic novel by Frank Miller. Like so many sequels before, it tries to turn everything to eleven but doesn't understand what made first movie so good. I will review 300 next. So I am not going too deep into what made it so good. It has to be said to this movie's credit that it made me want to see 300 again.

300 was all about to Spartans and their warrior attitude. Rise of an Empire tells about Athenians and makes brief visits to Sparta to show attitude difference of the city states. Attitude difference appears in less memorable speeches and toned down everything out side battles. To make this up movie uses tons of cgi blood and gore. I really hated quality of cgi blood in this movie. And there were never ending supply of it.

In 300 it was about the group working together. Rise of an Empire is more about individuals making the difference. Themistocles is not as charismatic as King Leonidas. Themistocles don't got same fire in his speeches that make you reserve dinner table from hell. He says the words but it doesn't feel like he means it. Of  course there is attitude difference between Athenians and Spartans. But still he is written like charismatic leader but he doesn't look like it.

300: Rise of an Empire looks and sounds amazing. It requires big screen and loud volume. After seeing it I regret that I didn't see it in theater. Movie looks like it was straight from Frank Miller's graphic novel. During some shots it feels they went too far with that style. I already mentioned cgi blood which was awful. But most of the time everything looked amazing.

Movie ended like there will be third movie. Xerxes is still on loose and Battle of Plataea is still to come. Beginning of that battle was shown at the end of 300.

300: Rise of an Empire is not as good as 300. If you remember 300 to be constant battle and you liked it, you probably like this too. If you remember what it actually was, you may be little disappointed. This took the battles from 300 and forgot most of the other things.