300 : Rise of an Empire

I went to see 300 : Rise of an Empire yesterday.

My feelings on this were a bit of a mixed bag. I was not the biggest fan of the original 300 movie at the cinema, but I have subsequently warmed to it. This film adds a bit more story about the lead up to the first film and fills in more details about what happened after, so it is kind-of like a combined prequel-sequel. Visually it was quite similar to 300, but it felt a little more low budget to me, like a longer, high budget episode of the Spartacus TV series…

The action sequences tended to follow a similar pattern of,

  • Fast shaky camera with no focus.
  • Slow motion slash.
  • Ultra-slow motion blood splash.
  • Repeat.

I did like the back story of how Xerxes became a God King. During that sequence I got really into the film, but after that the film started to meander and drag on a bit. By the end I was starting to nod off, so too was my pregnant friend, but her husband thought it was brilliant.

As is often the case, if you like the first you will probably like this. Just don’t hold out any hope that it will push the envelope, because it won’t.

Cheers

Tim…

PS. While Spartan’s had Scottish accents (see first film), it appears Athenian’s  had Australian accents! You learn something new every day… 🙂