by Brett Parker
The most striking thing about 300: Rise of an Empire is how in a blockbuster franchise that celebrates loutish macho-man testosterone, a woman turns out to have the biggest balls (metaphorically speaking) throughout the entire movie. As this sequel aims to dish out more images of bare-chested ancient warriors spilling blood in a CGI-on-acid landscape, sexy brunette goddess Eva Green shows up to not only steal the entire film but become the only good reason for it’s existence. Clad in all-black-everything with fishnet stockings and golden stegosaurus spikes on her back, Green’s Artemisia of Caria is the kind of sword-wielding, blood-thirsty, porcelain-skinned goth babe that would make Quentin Tarantino and Tim Burton reach for a cigarette. Maybe if she had a better movie to play off of, I wouldn’t be gushing so hard, but this is like watching Cleopatra slashing her way through Oompa-Loompa Land.
300 was the tale of a small army of Spartans who stood their ground against the armies of the vast Persian empire in a last stand to protect their homeland. They were crushed and defeated, but the brave tenaciousness they showed in the face of adversity promised to be echoed throughout the ages. It’s that very tenaciousness that the Athenian army hopes to cling onto in this sequel as the Persian army sets their sights on all of Greece. As the merciless force pulling the strings behind the scenes for King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), Artemisia of Caria (Eva Green) takes command of a naval fleet to crush the remainder of Greece with a fearsome army. The only thing standing in her way is Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton), a noble Athenian who rallies his level-headed countrymen and motivates them to hold off their enemies at sea. This sparks an all-out nautical attack, in which boats clash into each other and armies slice-and-dice their opponents until only one nation is left standing.
300: Rise of an Empire wants to build on the first film’s poetry for neanderthals, but it lacks the brutish electricity and deranged philosophies that bewildered us the first time. I enjoyed the first 300 on a (very) simple-minded level, mostly for the way it aspired to bring cinematic beauty to Frank Miller’s ultraviolent graphic novel panels and for the way it barbarically skewered simple philosophies, like Field of Dreams for cavemen. Everything in the sequel feels watered down and doesn’t have the same sense of thuggish hysteria that proved surprisingly gripping the first time around. The biggest difference in terms of action is how the battle scenes here are naval fights at sea as opposed to the land combat of the first one. Instead of strategic blood-battles across a bare land-scape, warriors take impossible leaps across wooden sea vessels to beat the pulp out of whatever mariner-warriors stand in their way. While both films deal in over-the-top CGI, the actions feels more incoherent this time around, denying us the fluid beauty-meets-the beast visuals the first one had quite a handle on.
It also doesn’t help matters that none of the male characters on display register at all. They all fit the description of handsome-yet-generic Troy leftovers, but there’s nothing memorable about them at all. The only one you can really single out is Sullivan Stapleton, but that’s because he’s been forced into the franchise’s leading spot since Gerard Butler ate dust in the first one. Say what you will about Butler, but his virtue is to bring magnetism to burly, baroque lunkheads in the same vein in which we recall fondness for Big Moose from the Archie comics. Stapleton wouldn’t even pass muster starring in a made-for-basic-cable gladiator movie on the Family Channel. Considering how disgruntled moviegoers found alarming political ideologies the first time around, I wonder if the casting of more “simple” actors is supposed to be a pointed political statement. If the first 300 is meant to represent the cockeyed war-mongering of the George W. Bush era, then perhaps the sequel is meant to reflect the Obama era: blue-clad warriors trying to be clear-headed about democracy....and ending up in chaos anyways. It’s sort of worth noting how the heroes on display here aren’t as muscular as the ones from last time around.
You really do find yourself just marking the time until Eva Green shows up on screen. She really does lay waste to every other performer and visual around her. Even King Xerxes, the flamboyant, glowing god-king who seemed so fascinating in the first film, is reduced to a side-show clown in Artemisia’s presence. Green proved to be one of the most powerful of Bond Girls in Casino Royale and was able to spoof seductresses while staying seductive in Dark Shadows, but putting her beauty in an action-princess light catapults her to a whole new stratosphere. The film’s only memorable and powerful moments are the ones in which her royal gravitational pull yanks the entire movie into her orbit. The most fierce image comes when she kneels before a king wielding several dismembered heads with her face covered in blood. The scariest part of the whole moment is the killer determination in her eyes that could damn near set the screen on fire. In a movie filled wall-to-wall with over-the-top violence, the only heart-stopping moment comes when Artemisia begins having aggressive sex with Themistocles in an attempt to get him to join her side. As her body gyrates away, the demonic intensity in her face puts everyone else’s war-faces to shame and her nude body reminds us that it’s been a long time since an R-Rated Hollywood product treated us to an all-out sex scene just for the hell of it. Between Cameron Diaz getting it on with a car in The Counselor and Eva Green commanding the screen in the buff, maybe Hollywood is finally getting it’s sexual mojo back.
Look, there’s two camps of people in this world: those who thought 300 was an awesome display of bad-ass-ness or those who thought it was a complete waste of time. If you’re in the former, then you’ll be disappointed to find that this sequel isn’t nearly as good as the first, and if you’re in the latter, then you knew since the first trailer dropped to stay far, far away from this one, so that’s settled. But if you’re a fan of super-sexy, action heroines fully prepared to take over your fantasies, then 300: Rise of an Empire has a really awesome prize hidden for you within an awful box of cereal. I can’t remember the last time such a fantastic female character was trapped in such a worthless movie. The most positive thing I can say about this flick is that it had me pointing to Eva Green’s poster in the lobby afterwards while shouting “THIS....IS....SEXY!”
