The long awaited follow up to 2007's hit 300 is exciting, very entertaining. There is a new director (the little known Noam Murro from Israel), but the recharged, operatic style, with heavy use of digital imagery, that made the first movie famous is back again. It can be said that this is not technically a sequel, as both movies happen more or less simultaneous chronologically: the first movie took place in the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC). The new one, after an introduction in the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), centers on the Battle of Salamis, in 480 BC, around the same time as Thermopylae. (Of course, I know you don't go to movies like this to learn about history).
Sorting out from their defeat at Marathon, the new Persian emperor Xerxes decides to take revenge in the form of a large seaborne invasion of Greece. His main admiral is the incredibly sexy but brutal Artemisia, who is Greek born but was saved when she was a little girl by a Persian and has lived in the Persian court ever since, thirsting for revenge against her native land. The Greek side, on the other hand is commanded by the brave, honest Athenian Themistocles.
As Themistocles, Australian actor Sullivan Stapleton is fine, though he lacks somewhat the charisma Gerard Butler showed playing Leonidas in the first film. But Eva Green as Artemisia is magnificent, magnetic, by far the most charismatic character of the film. Rodrigo Santoro is back as (a very fantastic) Xerxes. Lena Heady reappears briefly as Gorgo, Queen of Sparta. There are very fine action scenes involving naval battles, but the movie's best scene has Artemisia bringing Themistocles to her boat to ostensibly discuss peace, but it all ends up in a heated sexual rump.
Sorting out from their defeat at Marathon, the new Persian emperor Xerxes decides to take revenge in the form of a large seaborne invasion of Greece. His main admiral is the incredibly sexy but brutal Artemisia, who is Greek born but was saved when she was a little girl by a Persian and has lived in the Persian court ever since, thirsting for revenge against her native land. The Greek side, on the other hand is commanded by the brave, honest Athenian Themistocles.
As Themistocles, Australian actor Sullivan Stapleton is fine, though he lacks somewhat the charisma Gerard Butler showed playing Leonidas in the first film. But Eva Green as Artemisia is magnificent, magnetic, by far the most charismatic character of the film. Rodrigo Santoro is back as (a very fantastic) Xerxes. Lena Heady reappears briefly as Gorgo, Queen of Sparta. There are very fine action scenes involving naval battles, but the movie's best scene has Artemisia bringing Themistocles to her boat to ostensibly discuss peace, but it all ends up in a heated sexual rump.