So, I finally bit the bullet and saw the new 300 movie. Honestly I couldn’t even remember why I was so apprehensive towards seeing it, and I was actually looking forward to seeing it sitting in the theatre before hand (I arrive 10 minutes before the Scheduled start time. Yes I know there’s previews.), wondering why I didn’t want to see this film. Then the movie started and I remembered.
I didn’t hate 300, I just wasn’t a huge fan of it. Having never read the comic I couldn’t judge how well the film followed it. But, if you’re interested in that whole CGI, slow motion kind of Swords and Sandals movie, it’s great; personally I’ll stick with Deathstalker. 300 wasn’t bad; I certainly enjoyed the cheesy lines, and the cinematography was quite nice, I just got bored of the Hack’n’Slash to exposition to Hack’n’Slash rinse and repeat cycle. If that’s your thing that’s fine, I just don’t really see the appeal. 300 wasn’t bad: but 300: Rise of an Empire is.
I didn’t go in to the movie expecting a history lesson, so I won’t list the historical anachronisms the movie presents (That would be a whole other three or four articles), but instead I’ll focus on what it does poorly as a film.
The films main problem is the dialogue, in that it is an unholy terror of a screenplay. Every single line in the film is either describing a fight scene or exposition providing filler in between fight scenes. If you replaced the actors voices with Trombones, like Charlie Brown’s parents, not only would the impact and bearing of the dialogue remain exactly the same, but some of the “jokes” may actually get some sort of reaction from the audience. That is if they’re not drowned out in the endless sea of “Blah Blah Blah Brave Whateverhisnameis” or “Blah Blah Blah We fight for Freedom” or “Blah Blah Blah Persia’s so awesome.” To make it worse the dialogue seems to have been written by someone who saw Spartacus half an hour before writing it, and decided to write in a Ye Olde phrasing style, which is abandoned at certain points for no apparent reason.
Now that we’ve discussed the major audio problem, let’s move on to the main visual problem. 300 was probably only an hour long if you sped up all the slow motion scenes to full speed. 300 Rise of an Empire seems like it’s only 15 minutes long if you speed up all the slow motion scenes. I’d estimate that, for every 30 seconds of the film, 15-20 of it is in slow motion. What’s worse is that it follows the rinse and repeat pattern the dialogue does. Same dude swings a sword at normal speed and then the movie slows to a crawl while the blade goes through him, then the film returns to normal speed. This happens throughout every action scene in the film bar one, and in the one that it’s absent from the camera was shaking so much I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
For such an effects driven movie, the effects were terrible. Let it be known that I will defend practical effects with terminal intensity, but I will admit that digital effects can be good at times. Not this time though; a ridiculous amount of blood soars through the air in hits movie, and unfortunately it all looks like rather thick strawberry jam; and yes, i checked, the Ancients Greeks and Persians in fact did NOT bleed Strawberry Jam. For a movie that seems to have a focus on gore, there’s very little of it. Sure, there’s two or three decapitations, but in a battle scene the swords cut through flesh very cleanly, and blood spurts out sure, but that’s not gore. Gore is when flesh is being violently ripped apart, not cleanly cut through. It’s almost as if the Greek swords send a kindly worded letter to the Persians poorly armored hides before nicely cutting through them.
What does the film do well? It kinda makes Naval Combat seem fun, sort of. I guess?
OVERALL VERDICTS: Cannot recommend this film to anyone, especially not in 3D. If you want to see a stupid, poorly done sequel to a swords and sandals movie, rent Conan the Destroyer. It’s cheaper.