The splinters of a dozen shattered ships suspended beneath churning waters. Countless dead bodies, missing limbs and worse, leaving curled ribbons of blood as they sink. Massive leviathans rising from the depths to swallow the decimated warriors whole like bite-sized snacks. All of this in 3D on the largest possible screen.
Visually, “300: Rise of an Empire” is a marvel. Frame by frame, it offers a jaw-dropping rendering of the spectacle of ancient battle. Swords already dripping with blood slice the air, and then slice throats, cleave heads, and impale torsos, splattering the screen with three-dimensional gore. A massive wooden armada descends on a tidal wave toward a small gathering of Greek vessels defiantly standing against Persian tyranny. Shirtless warriors strike heroic poses against a backdrop of thunder clouds as fingers of lightning crack open the sky.
I love this movie.
My affection for this minor masterpiece goes beyond what must have been the lovingly crafted image. I love it for its cinematic technique. I love it because director Noam Muro knew he was making a film, and that people who love film would be watching. He didn’t shove his camera into his actors’ faces and mindlessly whip it around. Rather, he established each setting, he carefully choreographed every fight, and then he filmed what was taking place on the screen.
Muro’s camera rarely cuts away from the combat, but instead follows each intricate move, allowing the viewer to watch - to sink into - his blood-spattered ballet.
Like Zack Snyder, the director of the original “300,” Muro used slow motion extensively, not just so the viewer can savor the eye candy, but to orient the audience. In one scene, the hero mounts a horse, gallops across a ship in the midst of breaking apart, and dives into ocean water to reach his enemy. Done as a single shot, the action slows down each time the camera has to turn, allowing viewers to adjust.
The last shot of the movie alone sent me out of the theater in adrenalized excitement. In that single image is all of the power and emotion of the entire film.
The actors and the story are strong as well. Set before, during, and after the original “300,” “Rise of an Empire” follows Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton), a Greek general who leads a small band of warriors and ships against the Persian king, Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), and his sister, Artemisia (Eva Green). As Themistocles fights the Persians and struggles to unite the Greek city states against a common enemy, bits and pieces of “300” trickle into the frame. Not since “The Empire Strikes Back” has a sequel made an even greater triumph of the original film. What “Rise of the Empire” does with the defeat of Leonidas at the end of “300” is nothing less than inspired.
While Stapleton doesn’t quite have the presence of Gerard Butler, who played Leonidas, he carries a heavy burden in “Rise of the Empire,” and he carries it well. Themistocles is fierce, driven, honorable, and brilliant. He’s also a little mad and weighed down with regret. Stapleton packed all of this baggage into his performance.
Xerxes seems a little softer this time, for reasons best discovered while watching the movie. His back-story is fascinating. But Santoro still creates the impression of a fearsome tyrant who wants only to rule the little bit of the world that’s left after he’s swung his sword.
My greatest affection, however, belongs to Green, who creates a persona both terrifying and alluring. Artemisia, the commander of the Persian navy, is as fierce and driven as Themistocles, but she’s bent only on revenge. Born a Greek, and through tragic circumstance dumped for dead on the streets of Persia, her life’s purpose is to turn the Aegean Sea red with Greek blood. She’s beautiful, powerful, and intense, and a force of nature on the water. I was unable to look away.
(As an aside, including a female villain in the film was a stroke of brilliance. It added some much-needed estrogen to this otherwise testosterone-drenched film.)
Lastly, the story. While the script is not the stuff of great literature, it’s as tightly woven as the sails on a Spartan ship. It handles multiple narrative points with ease, cleverly integrates the story of the original “300,” and offers plenty of bombastic but whip smart dialogue, little of which could be printed in a newspaper. I’ll just say Artemisia’s dig on Themistocles during their final confrontation floored me. It was writing at its most aware.
If you don’t like violent, bloody action, or sword and sandal movies, “300: Rise of an Empire” will not be your cup of tea. But if you’re longing for a movie that respects you as a viewer and denies you no visual pleasure film can offer, see it - in a theater, and in 3D.
Four stars out of four. Rated R for “strong, sustained sequences of stylized bloody violence, a sex scene, nudity, and some language” (IMDB).
dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com