MOVIE REVIEW - 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE Release Date: 06/03/14 Rating: MA15+ Director: Noam Murro Stars: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, Rodrigo Santoro & Gerard Butler’s dead corpse from the original film Run Time: 102 min’s Trailer: bit.ly/1hDNhw0 Score (out of 10): 5½ Back in early 2007, the original 300 flick was quite the surprise hit. It was a fictional take on a real battle that took place almost 500 years BC, where 300 Spartans fought to the death against more than 300,000 Persian soldiers. 300ROAE serves as not just a prequel, but also a sequel, as well as … well let’s just call it a ‘side-quel’. It picks up right at the end of the last flick - & then jumps forward in time - but then just as quickly goes back in time to the events that lead to the original battle of the 300 Spartans - & then also shows us another battle brewing at the same time as the original battle … Huh??? I know it might not sound like it, but as with Back To The Future, the time-jumping makes far more sense when you’re actually watching the flick. Also on the plus side is Green (Casino Royale’s Vesper) as the hard-ass Persian Queen. Personally I’ve never been a big fan of her work, but every time she’s not on screen in this, the film seems to dip. She really does nail the power-chick role. Which leads me to the downside … pretty much everything else. The remainder of the cast are pretty uninspiring; particularly Aussie Stapleton, whose charisma levels are not a patch on Gerard Butler from the 1st flick. And whilst the stylised look of the 1st film was one of its strong points, this flick just looks cheap, fake & gamey. I mean I don’t know if it was budgetary, but judging by the quality of the CGI you’d think this was made 7 years before the original, rather than 7 years later. And given there’s a fair amount of time spent on the parallel story, it just feels like we’re watching the second string team in a second string battle... which was one of the biggest problems with the recent Bourne side-quel with Jeremy Renner. Hamstrung by having to mesh with the original story, there are just too many constraints. Plus, in theory we’ve already seen their best shot at this!! Bottom line - like so many sequels/prequels, the juice is gone & if Hollywood was only about entertaining rather than making $$, 300ROAE would probably never have been green-lit.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 04:29:20 +0000
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