300: Rise of an Empire - Like a ‘straight-to-DVD’ film that was in the cinema

Sometimes when a film is a big hit and then it gets a sequel, the second offering gets sent straight to DVD – some of the stars don’t return and it doesn’t get the same budget as the first.  ‘300: Rise of an Empire’ feels like it should have gone straight to DVD.  Even though it has a reasonably sized budget and some of the actors return, it just comes across as a ‘lesser offering.’

That doesn’t mean it’s bad, just not as original and focused as the first.  It serves as a prequel, sequel and also set during ‘300.’ The Spartans from the first film are now more in the background and it’s about the Athenian navy, tasked with the job of stopping the Persians.

The gore is all there again and, despite not being directed (only co-written) by Zack Synder, it retains his trademark ‘slow motion’ and speed-up type effects.  Also, once again, it’s primarily shot in front of a blue screen, meaning all the backgrounds are basically computer generated.  However, this time round it seems to appear a little cheaper than the first.

It has enough action to keep most fans of watching multiple people being severed in two by swords, but perhaps one of its main flaws is that the lead characters don’t really seem that strong.  I read online that the part of the main Athenian – Themistokles – was offered around to some ‘better-known’ male actors, but the producers decided to go with a lesser-known one, in order to (hopefully) give him his ‘break-through’ role.  I just felt they misfired there and they needed someone with a little more screen presence.

Also, the villain from the original – Xerxes – returns, yet, instead of being the unstoppable epitome of evil he was from the first film, he’s more of a sidekick villain who spends a lot of his time being manipulated by someone else.

Overall, it’s not a bad film.  Just know that it’s probably not going to live up to the original.  Just watch it for its action and look at it as a ‘compendium piece’ to the first.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that