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DVD 300: Rise of an Empire
 Run time: 102 min Rating: 6.5 Genres: Action | Drama | Fantasy Director: Noam Murro Writers: Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad Stars: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey |
| Storyline After its victory over Leonidas’ 300, the Persian Army under the command of Xerxes marches towards the major Greek city-states. The Democratic city of Athens, first on the path of Xerxes’ army, bases its strength on its fleet, led by admiral Themistocles. Themistocles is forced to an unwilling alliance with the traditional rival of Athens, oligarchic Sparta whose might lies with its superior infantry troops. But Xerxes still reigns supreme in numbers over sea and land. Written by Gargantuan Media |
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| Plot Keywords: army, sea, army base, commander, general | |
| Details: Country: USA Release Date: 7 March 2014 (UK) |
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| Box Office Budget: $110,000,000 (estimated) Opening Weekend: $45,038,460 (USA) (7 March 2014) Gross: $106,369,117 (USA) (16 May 2014) |
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4 comments
This movie was absolutely a waste of my time and my money. I went to my local theater on March 7th which is also my birthday and I wanted to see the movie based on the performance of the first 300.
The first 300 had catharsis, it had actual character development and made you want to keep going. This new 300, "rise of an empire" was absolutely horrendous. Rise of an empire, what empire?
This Great War that united the Greeks was barely touched on. It was all about the blood and the guts and breasts. I don't mind nudity. I don't mind blood. But the way the director went about it only cheapened the experience. This movie has a line in it "you fight harder than you f***" (Artemisia). It could have been beautiful and filled with the promise of something both hilarious and invigorating if the scene it referred to had not been so vulgar. 300 Rise of an Empire was not worth the money I spent on it. There are books out there on this point in history, historical fiction books that have stronger character development than this script. The actors did the best they could with what they had, but writers and director, you owe the public an apology for this poor display of cinematic "genius". It was cheap, crude and not well thought out. I had higher hopes. Next time actually make something worth watching.
I'm a Persian, I watched the movie last night and I think it was really unjust to our history, and it's not making it OK by simply saying that it was made upon a comic book, there are many points which I couldn't close my eyes on and this is why I'm writing this. if you don't care about the accuracy of historical events you will probably enjoy the movie and in that case you don't need to read this review just move on to the next. But if you are aware of the conflicts between the east and west, the history of Greko- Persian wars and relationships etc you will suffer thorough the movie and here is why: 1- The history is twisted in the movie and very one sided 2- The movie makers present Persians as terrorists since they use suicide bombers to win the battle which is a shame, how could they relate something that accrued just in the recent history to a great nation like Persia!. 3- The Persian king Xerxes, is presented as a cowered, Darius, father of Xerxes was killed by Themistokles, a Greek general, and before his last breathes he tells Xerxes that "do not repeat my mistake, only gods can defeat Greeks"! while Darius never left Persia to attend this war and he was not killed by Themistokles and until this day, Iranians are visiting his tomb and paying him respect. 4- The customs for Iranian soldiers and the king himself are simply Arabic customs, the general who trained Artemisia is a black person, with my respect to Arabs and every other racial group, I'm I the only one who notices this movie and feels deeply sorry for the racist movie makers?! Is it hard to tell Persians and Arabs and Blacks apart? It's just sick man who are these wild, not civilized people with long beards in this movie? With a simple look at the statues of Persepolis you can find out how Persians looked like. 6- Muhammad Dandamayev a Russian historian, mentions in his famous book "A political history of the Achaemenid empire"; that after the Spartans killed the Persians messengers they realized what a big mistake they did and sent two soldiers to Persia so they can be killed instead of the Persian messengers and Xerxes tells them "I would be like a nation that violated the internationally known values and performed a disrespecting act of cowardliness" apparently this scene was shown as a remarkable thing to do in the movie 7- Last and most important point is in the movie, the Persians did not care about the slaves and the soldiers who were killed but the Greeks were defending not only their country but the freedom and democracy and apparently they don't have any slaves working for them, while slavery was widely spread at that time and it wasn't like the recent slavery of African people, the color did not matter and the Greeks were using them to build their citadels like Acropolis, surprisingly the Persians were paying workers to build Persepolis! the reason I remember this one in particular is that it was discovered just recently, archaeologists found some payment receipts made of rocks if I'm not mistaken belonged to workers who participated in building Persepolis from different nations. Democracy does not have the same meaning as the democracy we know nowadays, it's funny how this movie reflects the American perspective toward Middle-east.
I can't understand why Zack Snyder didn't direct this sequel, and how someone who has never directed an action sequence before and just one feature film can be entrusted with a production of this magnitude. That would already be a recipe for disaster, even though in reality Snyder was supervising.
In an attempt to live up to it's predecessor, 300: Rise of An Empire is action-packed, presents impressive visuals and is very bloody. In fact there is more action, more blood, and more nudity than in the original 300. As for the plot, there really isn't much to chew on. A naval commander, Themistocles is supposedly trying to reunite Greece. Since the story takes place before, during and after King Leonidas leads his men to fight the Persians, it can be hard to follow at times.
Most of the acting was mediocre and couldn't quite compensate for the weaknesses in the story. The Australian actor cast as Themistocles in my opinion was a very bad choice, and comes nowhere close to what Gerard Butler did as King Leonidas in 300. He just doesn't bring that rugged heroic presence on screen as is expected. Interestingly I read somewhere that director Noam Murro insisted it would be Sullivan Stapleton who played this character, claiming he was 'the one'. Eva Green on the other hand is plays an excellent villain as Artemisia.
So the Movie starts off with a pretty OK fighting scene.
Take care of this moment because this is probably the only scene that will live up to your expectations.
I will not over analyze the Movie because its just not Worth the effort.
The Movie was plain simple boring. Every scene was just taking your expectations away bit for bit and makes you realise the inevitable truth that this Movie will take Place on the goddamn ships the whole time. Except of course when they are have shitty romantic speeches about freedom and how awesome it is to be lame.
The true heart of the first 300 was the brilliant fighting scenes and the simple principle: – You want to change how we live? – Oh yeah? F you and everyone that looks like you, you shitheads! We rather F our mothers than surrender.
The sequel is the complete opposite: – Ooh, look at us. We have to have this bullshit democracy and F up Everything because we have our freedoms. Lets be lame and use Home-Alone-Traps for defense instead of real fighting scenes pumped up with some Persian-hating testosterone.
I Went to the Cinema this evening expecting a sure to be awesome Movie and all I got was this bullshit.
Im gonna spend my remaining Days praying that all the involved people in this Movie will spend the rest of their lives flipping Burgers at Burger King.