300: Rise of an Empire (18+) – starring Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green and Rodrigo Santoro, directed by Noam Murro
THE sequel to the smash-hit 2007 graphic novel adaptation picks up right after the heroic King Leonidas and his 300 warriors have fallen to the man-turned-god Xerxes (Santoro) and his colossal Persian army.
The towering tyrant’s army is now free to march on the major Greek City-States, with Athens lying first along the path of the invading horde. Knowing the city cannot hope to survive against Xerxes’ forces alone, Athenian admiral Themistocles (Sullivan) is forced into an uneasy alliance with their traditional rivals from Sparta, led by Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey, reprising her role from the first film).
Xerxes, though, is backed by the unstable and intense Artemisia (Green), commander of the vast Persian fleet, leaving Themistocles and Queen Gorgo outnumbered on both sea and land.
As he was committed already to directing ‘Man of Steel, original director Zack Snyder handed over the directoral reins to Murro, but the super-stylised look of the original movie has been retained, leaving the screen washed out with muted colours and dark silhouetted musculature, and again framed like the comic book source material. The celebrated abs sported by the original ‘300’ have also been retained, one of the more striking and popular aspects of Snyder’s original. Brutal fight scenes, slowed down for maximum effect, impossible acts of physicality and larger-than-life characters will ensure that this movie is as visceral and intense as its predecessor.
300: Rise of an Empire invades cinemas on Thursday 6th March.
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