COUGH COUGH MOVIE REVIEW

Oh hi! Are you still here? No? I don't blame you.  Well, here we go with another review!

STARRING

Sullivan Stapleton as Themistokles
Eva Green as Artemisia
 Callan Mulvey as Scyllias

AND RETURNING FROM 300

Lena Headey as Queen Gorgo
Rodrigo Santoro as Xerxes
Andrew Tiernan as Ephialtes
David Wenham as Dilios
Gerard Butler as King Leonidas


Whew, what can be said about this movie that hasn't already been said about the original? Blood, guts, boobs, gore, a stirring speech every five minutes, a proverbial dick-measuring contest between shirtless warriors and more bullet-time and slowdowns than the Matrix trilogy being broadcast on an NES.

When our story opens, it's shortly after the events of 300. David Wenham's Dilios has given way to Queen Cersei Gorgo as the person who leads off with the speechifying, and she talks for a good long while. Basically, we're seeing Everything Else that happened while Gerard Butler's Leonidas - whose return is through archival footage and NOT a resurrection, thank goodness - was making modern men feel like particularly weak mice. The movie gets kind of confusing, introducing a younger, shorter, bearded Xerxes and flashing back and forth through time with nary a warning to the viewing audience.

We're introduced to a couple of new characters in this movie, but with the exception of one they're all pretty much disposable action-movie tropes (like the daddy whose son really wants to be a big boy so he sneaks off to join the army, only for them to OH MY GOD MEET UP ON THE BATTLEFIELD). That one non-disposable character would be Artemisia, the Greek orphan who is the real commander of Xerxes' armies. Seems her village was sacked by the national army, and her whole family raped and murdered in front of her (oh, bee tee dubs... one of her family members is raped on-screen, but shadowed. Still heebed my jeebies, though), and after being passed around like a blunt at a Grateful Dead concert for years she's left for dead somewhere in Persia. A big dude finds her and starts training her to be a warrior, and it turns out she's a natural because VENGEANCE.

I will commend the filmmakers for trying to make Artemisia seem like a warrior first and a woman second, as her ladyparts are only emphasized at one part of the movie, but it's clear that she's that way because she wants to be that way. I dunno, I could be wrong... I mean, I didn't see her as a "sex object" even once. She was badass if you ask me. And since this is my blog and commenting isn't allowed, my opinion is the ONLY opinion.

I wonder if this is how Dubya felt.

At any rate, 300: Rise of an Empire is a largely unnecessary sequel. It wasn't horrible, but after watching Gerard Butler almost literally chew up and spit out the Persian army did we really need more?

Go for the violence, the well-choreographed fights, and the.. uhh... more violence. Just don't pay what I did.


VIEWED IN IMAX 3D (ticket price $17.99)

FINAL REVIEW
300: Rise of an Empire
2.75 snowflakes out of 5

TL;DR - A watered-down version of the original. Boobs, though, amirite?

TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS MOVIE: Rape, women being treated as sex toys unless they're Gorgo or Artemisia, blood, gore, violence, crow eating some dude's eyeball